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Karel Tjerssen is the youngest member of the family who rule the vast, interplanetary combine of Spiderglass. Distrustful - with reason - of his family, and looking to the future when he plans to rule the corporation, he creates a double-edged weapon ... the sisters Jezrael and Chesarynth Brown, one a rebel and one a brilliant scholar. Unknown to either of them Karel moulds their lives throughout the Solar System so that they will be ready when his time comes to strike.

But then the Gate is discovered. At first simply a rumour. Instantaneous matter-transmission. No more never-ending interstellar journeys, starving colonies of monopolies. In their different ways, Jezrael and Chesarynth will be utterly changed by Karel's manipulation - although not as he expected. And the Gate will change humanity itself ...

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