On the Moon's far side, shielded from Earth's radio cacophony, Americans are building a radio-astronomy observatory. Russians sift the dust of a lunar "sea" for helium-3 to run future fusion reactors. Commercial robots, remotely operated from Earth, roam the Moon's near side in a hunt for mineral wealth. Why chase distant asteroids for precious metals? One-time asteroids must lie close beneath the much-bombarded lunar surface.

Then a prospecting robot encounters a desiccated, spacesuited figure. An alien figure.

Americans from the lunar observatory investigate. Near the original find, underground, they discover an alien installation. Lunar Russians, realizing that the Americans are up to something clandestine, send their own small team. Each group distrusts the other ... even before the fatal "accidents" begin. By the time anyone suspects what ancient evil they have awakened, it may be too late.

For everyone on Earth, too.