Interstellar space travel has arrived, without the benefit of ansibles and warp drives. The Argo, vanity project of an eccentric billionaire, is taking humanity’s first tentative steps beyond the home planet. The voyage will see the Argonauts—and their children, and their children’s children—drifting alone and isolated through the black void for thousands of years. Poor, unremarkable, lovelorn Arthur Pifflethorpe has been chosen to go with them. He hasn’t the foggiest idea why.