On March 16, 1912, British polar explorer Titus Oates commits suicide by walking out of his tent into an Antarctic blizzard, to save Robert Falcon Scott and the other members of the English exploration team. His body is never found--because he was snatched away into the year 2045 by scientists experimenting with a new faster-than-light drive.

Arriving in the future, Oates stubbornly sticks to his old explorer job and sets off on an intergalactic adventure that leads to both knowledge and self-knowledge.

The first part of this audiobook appeared as a novella in Analog Science Fiction magazine (April 2001) under the title "May Be Some Time." It was a finalist for both the Nebula and the Hugo awards.