The United Space Agency sends Dr. Evan Marshall to investigate why those on the first planet marked for colonization, Anex One, seem off. The planet is Earth-like except that one side experiences perpetual sunshine with regular rains of radioactive isotopes. Team member Reese Fowler was caught in this mutating rain, which left him bald, bug-eyed, able to read minds, able to disintegrate others at a touch, susceptible to darkness, and morally compromised. He keeps others in terror lest they abandon the planet and leave him behind and alone.
—statmanjeff