Whisper to me

Set in the near future, planet Earth is dying and the imminent environmental crisis prompts mankind to look to the stars for a new world to colonise. The Hypatia missions are pathfinders, performing reconnaissance of potential homes for mankind. This is the story of Hypatia IV and its crew, dispatched to an exoplanet in the Vega system. Awakening from Suspended Animation they find an almost perfect world with breathable atmosphere, blue skies and plentiful drinking water; but apparently no animal life amongst the limited flora.
Jake is the mission poet in residence and Commander of the Arts Team who will prepare the non-scientific reports back to Earth. He is imaginative, undisciplined and a totally inappropriate choice for a Section Commander. Juanita is the mission Executive Officer and second in command of the mission. She is ex-military, tough and unimaginative. She believes the Arts Team to be a waste of resource, sent along as a sop to anti-military and anti-science forces on Earth. She and Jake are poles apart.
Cataclysmic events on Earth during Hypatia IV's years of journeying to the stars change the mission objectives and the demands on the crew. They carry the burden of humanity's future, but what sort of a future do they wish to build?
The crisis deepens when Jake starts to have thoughts he believes are the telepathic and threatening whisperings of some entity living on the planet. Then, when a crew member meets a violent death, Jake is accused of his murder. Is he psychotic or in touch with the alien which killed the crewman?
This is a story of the unfoldment of lives before and during the Hypatia mission, a story of integration and coming together and of cultural achievement in an unfamiliar and threatening environment, a story of diversity finding resolution in synergy. It is a story of optimism for the future we may face.