In the year 2100, the invention of the Electron Pump - an apparently inexhaustable supply of free energy - has enabled humanity to break free of the Earth and estabish a foothold in the wider solar system. But the Electron Pump works by exchanging materials with a parallel universe, and such unbalancing of the cosmos has consequences. Now the race is on to prevent a vast nuclear explosion in the heart of the sun - and the vaporisation of the Earth exactly eight minutes later?