What would happen if Odysseus met Captain Ahab in the Fortieth Century? Only Captain Ahab is a beautiful woman named Steel who owns her own starship, and Odysseus is an unemployed actor named Mohandas who's stuck on the backside of a backwater moon because he won't pay his taxes. Everybody--almost everybody--lives forever, and there's a telepathic Internet that allows the entire population of the galaxy to communicate at will and even experience the world from another person's perspective.