In the future, the sentence executed against a man for a crime he didn't commit has serious ramifications for the entire human race. Weapons of mutually assured destruction are about to resurface in a budding conflict between the New and Old worlds, and if the populations of both Earth and the Martian Colonies are to survive, they are going to need his help. But there's a problem. The man has spent the last year at the mercy of their sentence, in a state of total isolation and indefinite exile, and now he looks on humanity with bitter eyes. Can old wounds be healed, or will history repeat...