An uncertain time after Heorest Holt, a girl named Liff is born into the world Holt helped create, though not the future he imagined. Landfall is already dying, and the supposed Second Colony never existed; instead, belief in the Seccers has become a communal explanation for scarcity, guilt, and fear.

The colony’s old anxiety over the people left behind on the Enkidu turns into superstition about the satellite overhead and the mysterious voice from the hills. The forest, originally a human-planted resource, becomes a place of dread in the colonists’ minds, though no alien visitors or monsters are part of this true history.

Liff grows up on a farm near the hills, in the old house associated with Holt’s descendants. By her childhood, the trees are dead, food is scarce, and suspicion has turned inward. After Liff’s parents die in an accident, Liff’s harsh uncle takes over the farm, and Liff grows up hungry amid failing harvests and insect infestations.

As the colony collapses, refugees crowd Landfall, food stores disappear, masked gangs raid farms, and people blame Seccers even while imitating them. Liff’s uncle becomes more violent and withholds food, so Liff flees home and survives by scavenging, stealing, and joining other abandoned children.

The children eventually adopt the name Seccers themselves, using the colony’s fear as camouflage. One by one, the children die from violence, accidents, or starvation, until Liff is the last child and, eventually, seemingly the last human being on Imir. Liff wanders the empty streets searching for anything edible, with no witch, Miranda, or rescuers to save her.

After Liff dies, something remains on Imir: the alien engine that remembers the colony’s history and repeats it endlessly. Holt’s landing, Landfall’s rise and fall, and Liff’s final breath are replayed again and again as the thing studies the pattern without understanding it.