Facing destruction by a neutron star, Earth sends out seed ships into the cosmos to perpetuate the human race. Ship 94 arrives at its destination, an earth-like planet, where it completes its mission to produce at least three hundred human breeding pairs, along with animals that would be of use to them, and training resources to give the new colony a jump-start into the Iron Age. Five-hundred ninety-seven years later, Tor, a young man, and his mastiff...