Joel and Martina Deeter teach astronomy and art at a junior college in the Michigan Dutch Triangle. He has an observatory and she a studio at their home on the old Deeter family farm. One night, Joel discovers a really boring star. It isn't very bright, or very big. Nobody else is interested in it, so he studies it alone. Then Joel learns that his star isn't boring at all. It's going the wrong direction, and it's moving way too quickly- unbelievably quickly, in fact. Joel is discredited. Other people's reputations are made at his expense. Meanwhile, an international space mission called Harmonia is under way to make Venus habitable for humans. One never knows when a replacement planet might be handy. Zander Phillips, one of Joel's former students, is selected for the crew. Deeter's Star is in a hurry. A spaceship and a planet are in front of it. Too bad nobody believes Joel.