Towards the end of the twenty-first century, a society of men and women a few thousand strong is marooned on Mars. This is a Mars unspoilt, a Mars unimproved; as the Antarctic has been designated a continent for science, so Mars is preserved as a planet for science - a White Mars. And it is on this 'Ayers Rock in the sky' that Tom Jeffries slowly creates his goal: the humanising of science, the improvement of human existence, the freeing of the mind from its dangerous past...
