- [last lines]
- The Control Voice: Powerful ideas do not die with those who gave them birth, so long as the seeds of those ideas are planted in their followers.
- [first lines]
- Gwen Hutchinson: In the year 2102, the United States of North America officially became the North American Corporation, or "the Company", as it was commonly called. The North American electorate became shareholders with all the rights and privileges of ownership. The truth was that the people were the Company's employees with no real rights and no privileges. In 2291, the Company sent five ships out on a reclamation project in the far reaches of the solar system. One of those ships was the interplanetary hauling vehicle Pequod. This is how it went down.
- The Control Voice: Who among us does not think he knows evil when he sees it? But are such distinctions really so black and white, or is morality simply a matter of perspective?