"Sometimes when you lose your way, there is no going home."

Jens needed to get off the planet in a hurry so he took the first job on an interstellar freighter he found-a convoy to the far-flung colony of Sukhavati, three Steps and almost three thousand lightyears away. Only the desperate went so far-colonists willing to trade a life on Earth for a new start mining a lifeless rock across the galaxy, or spacers one step ahead of the law.

But as each Step takes him farther from home, Jens learns that the job isn't exactly what he was told, the cargo not as legitimate, and his situation even more precarious. Jens finds himself being groomed for a role in an interplanetary drug racket, with no way out.

Then the convoy mis-Steps, emerging lightyears from where they wanted, and the miscalculation might not be their fault!