2287. Ceres Station. Forty-three days of water left.
When the asteroid colony's water system is sabotaged, Security Investigator Tom s Herrera arrives from Earth to find the culprit. What he finds instead is a population two hundred years into becoming something his world doesn't have a name for yet - and a forensic examiner whose own autopsies prove that following Earth's rules is quietly killing everyone who lives here.
The saboteurs aren't trying to destroy Ceres.
They're trying to free it.
Five people. Forty-three days. A crisis that was never really about the water.