The murder of UN observer Carl Neal on a lonely outpost of the Asteroid Belt would seem to be only a small human tragedy, and yet it opens up vistas both of millennia of time and of unimaginable distances. Inspector Tom Dooley, Chief of Security of the American Sector of the Belt, together with his faithful "Watson," Ralph Phelps, must sift through the many clues to unravel the mystery of Neal''s death--and then keep the aliens from interfering. A first-rate science fiction adventure combined with a classic mystery!