What awaits us out in space? *** New star-drive engines promise to open up the galaxy to human-kind. But the first ship to use the engines disappears and a sole survivor returns...alone and dying of some strange type of radiation. *** No one can figure out what has happened to the ship or the crew. Nor does anyone know what happens to a ship travelling using star-drive technology. *** Does some unknown horror await us out there? *** The only way to find out is to go out again. And Arch Comyn is determined to be the one to solve the mystery. *** But is he, and the rest of mankind, ready for whatever awaits us beyond the Big Jump?