Set in a near-future, we meet the builders and temporary inhabitants of the Wheel, to be named Space Station One at its completion. Skycorp has sent several men and women, called beamjacks, to build their station in Low Earth Orbit. We meet the people of this team in detail, from Pop-Eye, who has dark moods and lots of secret dreams to Virgin Bruce, a Grateful Dead lover who is pure outlaw at heart to Jack, whose herbal enterprises make the time pass, if nothing else, and more, including some enterprising space cats. We meet these people courtesy of Sam, who has taped his memories of the goings-on aboard the Wheel as
he is dying after falling into a crevasse on the Moon. The building of Space Station One along with Olympus Station and Vulcan Station is a fast-paced tale which makes a hard and dirty job into some great
reading.