In 1760, Guillaume le Gentil, astronomer to King Louis XV, sets sail for India. He hopes to record the transit of Venus, but rough seas - and war with the British - make his quest more complicated than he could have imagined. Two hundred and fifty years later, anxious, lonely Xavier Lemercier chances upon Guillaume´s telescope. As he looks out across the rooftops of Paris, he glimpses an intriguing woman with a zebra in her apartment. Then she walks into his office, and his life changes forever...