It's the mid-twenty-first century. Fusion power is cheap, every computer is connected to the Internet, and humans have tamed the Earth and settled the Moon, Mars, and most of Jupiter's satellites. The frontier of the day is the Torus, a region of asteroids and planetoids spanning the space between Mars and Jupiter. Interplanetary corporations have sprung up amidst this burgeoning expansion, as have a new breed of humans: "Tories," who have the skills and the desire to face the harsh magnificence of life in the wide open vacuum of outer space.
But there is tension. Tories and Earthers live in different worlds, and the differences are starting to show. The United Nations and NASA are silently brooding over losing the space race to Ariane Odyssey and Quintex Corporation, the two commercial giants who have explored and settled a good quarter of the Torus. Now strange things are happening. Robot supply stations are raided by pirates, company shuttles are disappearing, and a new space station has been sabotaged... and no one knows by whom, or why.
Soon enough, the cause of these mysterious events will become clear. But not everybody will want to believe it.
Copyright © 1996 Curtis C. Chen. All Rights Reserved.