Great Britain, United States

Wave upon wave of settlers arrive from Earth to begin colonisation. The stories of their private hopes and special dreams unfold across the Martian frontier:

— A retired couple search for their only son lost in the ill-fated second expedition

— Two priests hope to preserve the spirit of Christianity in an alien world

— A former astronaut and his wife antcipating great wealth, open a cafe at a crossroads through which all travellers must pass

— Colonel John wilder seeks to establish contact with a living Martian, believing that some vestige of the civilisation still exists in some form

Whether escaping old lives or estabishinig new ones, the pioneers from Earth find the transition a difficult one. In a world that seems haunted by the ghosts of an alien civilisation ten thousand years older than Man's their adjustments are, at best uneasy. When the threat of war on Earth becomes a reality most of the settlers abandon the new frontier to return home.