Synopsis: From the back cover: The Dead Worlds had long fascinated both the Old Earthers - humans mutated to survive their planets poisonous atmosphere - and the New Ones, humans who had taken to the stars before mutation became the only means of survival. Now a mixed expedition aboard the space yacht Paulus had come to the sector of space which held the Dead Worlds, many of which had been swept devastatingly clean of all life, with nothing remaining but barren rock and a few, a very few terrifying clues to suggest the former existence of technological civilizations there. And then there was DW-19, a world as lifeless as all the rest but one with its atmosphere intact and ruins enough to tempt any explorers. It was DW-19 which would start them down pathways no one who had gone before them had ever found, pathways which might reveal the truth about the Dead Worlds - or lure the crew of Paulus to the same fate the Dead Worlders had met...