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The Avalon, a sleeper ship transporting 5,000 colonists and 258 crew in hibernation pods, is traveling from Earth to the planet Homestead II, a 120-year journey as part of an exodus of Earth's population due to ecocide and the collapse of the biosphere.[8] After only 30 years, an asteroid collision damages the ship, causing a malfunction that awakens passenger Jim Preston, a mechanical engineer, 90 years early. He is unable to return to hibernation, and cannot contact Earth for help due to an overly long communication delay. He attempts to break into the crew hibernation room, in the hopes they will be able to help. He fails due to the strength of the ship's security systems. As the ship's AI systems cannot seem to comprehend the idea of a hibernation pod malfunction (as it had never occurred before), he eventually gives up, passing the time in several of the ship's entertainment zones.
After a year of isolation, with only an android barman named Arthur for company, Jim grows despondent and contemplates suicide, until he notices Aurora Lane, a beautiful young woman inside a pod. He considers reviving her for companionship, but struggles doing so, knowing it is morally wrong and will preclude her intended life on their destination planet. He eventually awakens her, letting her believe it was a malfunction. Devastated at having to live out her life on the ship, Aurora tries to reenter hibernation. Resigned to the situation, she begins writing about her experience. Over the next year, the two fall in love. Just before Jim intends to propose to Aurora, Arthur inadvertently reveals the truth about her awakening. Distraught and enraged, Aurora berates, shuns, and physically attacks Jim. She furiously rejects his apologies and avoids contact with him.
Sometime later, another pod failure awakens Gus Mancuso, a deck chief officer. Using Gus's employee code, the group gets on the bridge and discovers cascading failures in the ship's systems. If left unrepaired, the ship will fail, causing the passengers and crew to perish. When Gus falls critically ill, the ship's automated medical suite, the Autodoc, diagnoses pansystemic necrosis and gives him hours to live. Gus attributes it to his hibernation pod's multiple failures. Before dying, he gives Jim and Aurora his ID badge and employee code to get into crew-only areas.
Jim and Aurora find hull breaches from the asteroid collision two years earlier. The computer module administering the ship's fusion reactor power plant has been damaged, causing the cascading malfunctions as the other systems' computing power was diverted in an attempt to maintain it. They replace the damaged module but when the computer attempts to vent the reactor to extinguish a runaway plasma reaction, the exterior vent fails. Jim is forced to spacewalk and vent the plasma from outside, using the manual controls in the vent tube.
Jim discovers that he must remain in the tube to keep the vent open while Aurora initiates venting from inside the ship. Revealing her feelings for him, she admits she is terrified of losing him and being alone. Jim improvises a heat shield and survives the venting but is blasted into space as his tether snaps, and his damaged spacesuit begins losing oxygen. Aurora retrieves a clinically dead Jim from space and resuscitates him in the Autodoc. The Avalon, its reactor repaired, returns to normal operations.
After burying Gus in space, Jim learns the Autodoc can function as a hibernation pod for one person, and he insists that Aurora use it for the remainder of the voyage. Realizing she would never see Jim again, she chooses to remain awake with him. Eighty-eight years later, the ship's crew awaken on schedule, shortly before arrival at Homestead II. In the ship's grand concourse, they discover a huge tree with trailing vines, lush vegetation, flying birds, and a small cabin. A recording of Aurora's story describes the wonderful life she and Jim shared on the Avalon.
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