AustLit

'Sometimes the sky held only clouds, but at other times it could get quite busy. It could be full of sailing ships or bands of mounted warriors or even single figures strolling carefully across the empty air. From the viewpoint of those below they were either apparitions or gods, but in any case to be ignored. From the viewpoint of the sky walkers, those below were neither phantoms nor gods, yet certainly always beneath their notice. Both viewpoints were wrong. Because the time had come when one of the sky walkers was going to do the incredible - fall through. And when that happened, all hell was going to break loose. And did!'

Source: Publisher's blurb (Daw edition).

'Commander John Grimes, Federation Survey Service, should have been happy but he was not.' Although recently promoted, much to his surprise, Grimes finds himself consigned once again to being captain of a non-war ship. It doesn't help that his new vessel, Discovery (another Census ship) is a badly neglected rust-bucket. Worse still is the crew - a bunch of malcontents comprising the worse the Survey Service has to offer.

Before long a mutinous atmosphere begins to pervade the ship, with the situation spiraling downhill after Grimes is forced to cite the leader of the ship's marines, Major 'Mad' Swinton with the court-martial offence of murdering citizens from another planet. Grime's own misgivings about the voyage also manifest themselves through snatches of memory relating to the 'Wild Colonial Boy' and the ill-fated Bounty.

When the Commander and a few of his faithful crew are eventually dispatched into space aboard a tiny escape craft, he begins to understand how Captain William Bligh must have felt. Not only about the big black mark against his service record, but also about surviving against impossible odds.