Summary

In Chapter 1, a crowd gathers in Playalinda, Florida, near Cape Canaveral as the Tet Corporation’s Eagle-19 Heavy rocket lifts off. Gwendy Peterson from Castle Rock, Maine is one of the people on the rocket.

In Chapter 2, Gwendy is the first sitting U.S. Senator to ride to the MF-1 space station, known as Many Flags. Gwendy carries a small white case marked “CLASSIFIED MATERIAL.” When a fellow crew member asks Gwendy how is feeling about the trip, Gwendy tells him she is feeling fine. In reality, however, she cannot remember the man’s name.

Despite the trouble Gwendy is having with her memory, she knows how important it is for her to keep herself together. The button box, capable of destroying the world, is inside the white box. Gwendy will be serving as a climate monitor, a cover for her real duty...