In 2079, Central Intelligence Agency agent Snow is arrested for murdering undercover agent Frank Armstrong, who had uncovered evidence of Mole (espionage) selling secrets about the space program. Secret Service director Scott Langral, on advice from the President, has Snow convicted of murder and espionage. Snow is sentenced to thirty years on the maximum security space penitentiary ''MS One'', where prisoners are kept in stasis (fiction) for the length of their sentence. Snow's friend and fellow agent Harry Shaw tries to locate Snow's contact Mace, who knows where Frank's briefcase containing the stolen secrets is hidden.