When the moonship "Tycho III" comes into the landing pit at the New Mexico Spaceport, Andy Marlow has his first look in more than a year at the planet Earth. Instead of proud launching gantries and gleaming ships, he sees empty firing pits and the broken hulks of a few old spacetubs. Earth's brief two hundred years in space is now past history; man has been exiled for a violation of inter-galactic law. A short time after landing, Andy and his best friend despondently accept a mysterious job offer that takes them to a secret spaceport deep in the jungles of Central America. Here a ruthless ex-space captain, Reed Ballinger, plans to blast his way back into the galaxy. Andy, torn between loyalty to his friend and a growing awareness that Ballinger's way means war, finally flees the spaceport. He joins Project Nobel, a brilliant and dangerous scheme to thwart Ballinger and to convince the Star Brain, the machine that rules the galaxy, that Earth deserves to regain its place in space. Milton Lesser skillfully evokes the world of tomorrow in a dramatic story certain to appeal to all science fiction enthusiasts.