The story of Godman Falcon and Methania Fitts is set roughly 200 years further along in the course of human evolution... but in the year 2999. How is this 800-year disparity possible?

Sometime around the year 2050, a mysterious alien race entered our solar system and seeded the orbits of Earth and Mars with stasis field generators. When activated, all biologic and geologic processes on Earth and on Mars were halted in mid-step, as it were. For eight centuries, nothing moved. A few spaceships outside of the range of the stasis devices were unaffected, but they did not survive for long, being dependent on resupply from Earth or the Mars colonies.

Perhaps the Earth would have stayed in this bizarre technolimbo forever, had a generation ship not returned successfully from its deep space voyage. This ship, launched from Earth orbit in the year 2037, had intended to visit and settle whatever worlds there were around the star Arcturus . Instead, halfway through its adventurous journey, the ship encountered other spacefaring lifeforms, the Quazine -- fortunately friendly -- who shared with them the secrets of FoldSpace, their technology for faster than light travel. After a great debate and a near revolution (some thought they should continue on and settle the new worlds, others felt it was imperative to return to Earth with this incredible new technology), the generation ship turned around and headed back to Earth. While their outward journey had taken close to eight centuries, the return trip through FoldSpace was accomplished in weeks.

The returnees found their home trapped in time. Furious, they and their new Quazine friends employed their weapons to destroy the alien stasis generators and freed their fellow humans -- actually, in many cases, their ancestors. The reunion of the time-trapped and the space-born was one of great wonder, violence and joy. Many on Earth found it hard to accept their hibernation as fact, but when scientists proved it had happened, by measuring the distances between stars, some turned their shock and anger on the spaceborn, who they blamed for their imprisonment in time. (Partly this was due to the fact that in many ways, the spaceborn were almost alien to the Earthers, due to the changes wrought on them during their 800 years of travel in space, and the many genetic changes which happened -- through accident and by design -- during that time.)

The Quazine, who had followed the generation ship back to Earth, were introduced to a world of awe-filled humans as the first real proof of extraterrestrial life. The Earth and the Mars colonies were once more free to continue their evolution. It was the beginning of a new era.

Yet questions remained. Who had set the stasis devices, and why? The fragments of the devices left over yielded few clues to their origins... and in the heady days which followed the return of the spaceborn, the mystery of the "Big Downtime", as it had come to be called, paled into insignificance.