"The beyond started with the Stations orbiting the stars nearest Earth. The Great Circle the interstellar freighters traveled was long, but not unmanageable, and the early Stations were emotionally and politically dependent on Mother Earth. The Earth Company which ran this immense operation reaped incalculable profits and influenced the affairs of nations. Then came Pell, the first station centered around a newly discovered living planet. The discovery...

Thousands of years in the future, humanity has expanded to the stars, maintaining a loose connection to its home planet, largely due to the 10-year trip, each way, between Earth and the nearest station, called Alpha. Alpha is the Earth Company's base on this side of the universe, devoting most of its resources to a faster-than-light ship named The Rights of Man -- a not-quite functional monstrosity built using early drafts of stolen designs. The working...