Synopsis: From the back cover of the DAW Books first edition: After a five-year mission to the edge of the known universe aboard the explorer ship Rimfire, Erin had had enough of the unexplored reaches of space. She was ready to go home to New Terra and settle down for awhile to a comfortable, planetside existence with her father. But her mission had stolen too much previous time away, and Erin returned to find her father dead and herself heir not to a house and land but rather to a Mule class mining tug called Mother Lode and a set of coordinates which might open the way to unbelievable wealth - or prove to be merely an old man's foolish dream. Still, with the family fortune tied up in the Mother Lode, Erin had no option but to take to the starways in search of the "big strike". What she couldn't anticipate was that what waited at her journey's end was a mystery far older than the human race...