The Morts were turning up all over Aeolis, the Eden-like planet named for the unexpected winds which sprang from nowhere and swiftly faded again. But unlike the winds, the Morts didn't just fade away. These unidentifiable corpes-which on closer examination proved far from human-posed a bizarre threat to human control of Aeolis. So the Serviceship HALCYON XLV was dispatched to the planet to solve the secret of the Morts, a secret whispered by the winds every day-a secret older than mankind, which could spell the end of human life on the planet...
