In the far future a cataclysmic climate devolution occurs and the Planet Earth begins to lose its atmosphere: Slowly, and then quicker as time passes. The Milky Way has been colonized and planets in farther galaxies have been prepped for colonization. This is the story of Tau Ceti E... PROLOGUE Earth 02201 04-11 02:58:27 Los Angeles District Fifteen: My hand reached across the bedside table searching for the headset as it buzzed. Nia moved beside me, mumbled, obviously displeased that the buzzer was still going off. "Going to wake the babes," she said as coherently as she could. My hand finally closed on the headset. I untangled my head from the sheets and jabbed at the on button as I bought the device to my face. I mumbled into it. "Lee? ... Lee?" The voice sounded excited: Overexcited, I opened my eyes fully in the semi darkness, got up and out of the bed. I was barely used to sleeping off ship, it was only my second time; but I had missed Nia and the babes so much. The gravity was horrible. I felt overweight, out of shape. Nia said it passed, but I hated the waiting and the truth was that for me, with only short stays it never would pass. "Brother... Brother. Listen to me, brother, listen to me... Can you hear me? ... Are you there?" The voice was my oldest friend, Tom Richards. "Tom... Tom, calm down. What is it? Do you know what," I looked at the clock: A thing I rarely ever worried about shipboard, "time it is? Nia's upset; you could've waked the babes!" "You'll have to wake them anyway," he said bluntly. "What?" I asked. I made my way out of the bedroom quickly, stumbled to the kitchen and pulled a stool from the serve through and sat down. "I said you've got to wake them... And Nia, this is serious!" "What is serious, Tom? You're scaring me more than a little. What's wrong? ... Has it? ..." I couldn't bring myself to say it. Tom had worked at one of the biggest penal colonies on Mars for several years. Three years before he had fallen in with Nia and me when we had decided to buy our own Star Cruiser and seek our fortune. Even so he kept close contact with the men and women he had come to know, including some that were part of the Federal Planet Association that controlled all of Earth and all the other known planets as well. When things had gone sour for the FPA the year before, Nia and I had decided now might be the time to start a family. My wish was to get Nia off the ship, she had wanted to have children before it became too late. Bring them shipboard in a few years. After all; a Star Cruiser might not be a bad place to raise a family. They were protected after all. The Feds had dozens of cruisers of their own that patrolled what they considered their borders to keep us safe as we delivered supplies and more to distant outposts. Star cruisers were protected, but with just a few ships to protect hundreds of private cruisers it was becoming a hard job. We were docked on Earth. More properly put, we were docked at UPT fifteen, twenty-two miles above Earth. I was on the planet with Nia. "We lost a big chunk... A big chunk," he was whispering now. "A big chunk?" My mind was beginning to focus. "A big chunk... The Feds are pulling out... You there?" He whispered. "How much time," Lee heard himself say. His face felt numb. He stood and trotted back to the bedroom on autopilot. The end had been coming for generations, but it had been suppressed, kept from the public in the best possible way, ignoring it. And then Earth had taken a sudden turn for the worse. And a turn is what had started it...