Orphaned and six and sent to an orphanage, Jericho Rolland discovers an interstellar sim when he’s eight. Soon realizing actual trading like this will be the focus of his life. He applies his massive intellect and drive toward preparing himself for that goal. Knowing he can go to space at twelve, Jericho starts setting things up six months before his birthday. The only resistance he runs into is with the interstellar bank. The bank officials really don’t know who they are tangling with, but they find out much to their regret. At Twelve, when many of his almost always brilliant ancestors are usually finishing off their first round of college with honors. Jericho finally starts looking for his first berth, finding it three months later.

Jericho Rolland has completed his first interstellar trading voyage on the family trader Mattin with a seemingly impossible level of success. He has also seen to every problem he can think of for the orphanage he was forced to grow up in. Now, feeling much more confidant in the future he can provide for himself, Jericho finally feels he can handle going to see the home he started to grow up in, the one his trust is required to return to his possession when he turns eighteen in a little over five years. The Randle family gives him a ride to his once and future home. Instead of finding the ancient Rolland family home, he finds a half-mile-high office building where his home once stood. The same thing has happened to the other five nearby properties that are held in his family trust. The trust that is supposed to be being administered in Jericho’s interest by the Interstellar Unified Bank. The same bank he had problems with when preparing for his first voyage. The IUB should have known from then, what kind of person they were dealing with the last time they tangled. Now, Jericho vows to provide the bank an object lesson in intelligent ruthlessness. He needs to make it quick, though. The Mattin will soon be leaving on another trading voyage, and Jericho intends to be on it.

After receiving a very tempting offer from the commanding officer of the family trader ship Mattin, one which Jericho Rolland has to defer, he heads off for Union System, the last of the four trading hubs in Agency Space he has yet to visit. There, Jericho is going to make an effort to create his fourth trading hub. One would think the folks there would have heard something about what Jericho has accomplished in the other three hubs, however, that seems to not be true. With having all the family traders and most of the system’s miners in one room, they prove to be a somewhat contentious group. This lot may try Jericho’s very limited patience when trying to get things done.