As an experiment, in 2080 the International Space Agency has stranded four couples in a complex built inside a small ball of ice about ?ve billion miles from Earth. However, the young astronauts have a plan to return to the third planet from the sun without help from the agency. They have been betrayed in other ways, beyond being marooned. The four female astronauts become pregnant and give birth during the next year in space. Two of the four children are found to have extraordinary abilities which could be very bene?cial to the human race.