In the days of the great sailing ships, in the mid-twenty-first century, when magnetic sails drew cargo and passengers alike to every corner of the solar system, sailors had the highest status of all spacemen, and the crew of the luxury liner The River of Stars, the highest among all sailors. But development of the Farnsworth fusion drive doomed the sailing ships, and now The River of Stars is the last of its kind, retrofitted with engines, her mast vestigial, her sails unraised for years.