Scott Baughman expected to spend the day with his father in the pursuit of amateur woodworking. However, a trip to the hardware store ends when Scott and Pop are abducted and carried aboard an alien spacecraft. Along with the disbelief at what is happening, Scott and Pop are forced to deal with a young woman who has been torn from her infant child by the aliens.
Each of the victims attempts to cope with the situation in ways which ultimately draw them back to their basic skills. Pop works to organize a cargo hold full of food and merchandise, apparently stolen by the aliens from a warehouse store. The girl, Sylvia Fletcher, is attracted to the father figure in Pop and initially helps him. Scott is drawn to a computer set up by the aliens to enable communication with them.
Scott explores the computer network of the spacecraft and begins communication with the alien, who calls himself Bob. The alien has used a translation of an Instant Messaging program on his network to communicate with the computer used by Scott. By hacking through a back-door in the IM program, Scott is able to explore much of the ship's network. Bob attempts to improve communication and provides documents which help Scott and Sylvia to begin to understand the alien language.
The voyage is punctuated by conflict due to the inability of Scott and Sylvia to get along. Each is wrapped up in themselves, first by Sylvia's unregenerate nature and by Scott's backslidden condition. Pop is the unwilling referee, while encouraging them to pick their way through the alien system and language.
Scott eventually learns enough of the language and systems to achieve that breakthrough: the ability to program and control the alien computer network. Landing on a distant planet moves the captives into a new environment, but the presence of other space ships gives them the opportunity to engineer an escape.
The successful escape is marred by the discovery that their voyage to the planet was taken at high sub-light velocities. Thus time slowed down for the captives, and a one year voyage for them was actually four-hundred years on Earth. While they can return to Earth, they cannot go home.
This crisis breaks down the captives to where they can start dealing with their standing with God. Their arrival on Earth and the help provided by a Christian brother and sister gives them an anchor to begin a new life.
