A human expedition into deep space encounters a gigantic artifactâ€"a bowl-shaped object with a star at the center, and a habitable area equivalent to many millions of times the Earth’s surface. A landing party is sent to investigate, and they find a variety of strange, exotic creatures populating the Bowl. The landing party is separated into two groupsâ€"one is captured by the alien inhabitants, the other is pursued across the exotic and deadly terrain.
