Eternal youth is cosmically overrated. Ralph Ridley is caught in the shackles of time. Destined to lose everyone and everything, he's desperate to solve the mystery behind his fate. As Earth approaches its next ice age, the population dwindles. Some leave for the Alpha Centauri system. Some go underground. The rest remain thinly dispersed across the planet. Including Ralph. And it's on the cusp of this event he exiles himself to the South Australian desert, where he hopes to no longer suffer loss or ridicule. Here, living in isolation, he puts his maths and science knowledge to use, toiling and tinkering, reading and experimenting, building contraptions engineers (and magicians) could only ever dream of. Little does he know though, the answer to all his suffering may not be found on the pale blue dot he calls home, but in the cosmos beyond...