What would you do if you discovered a path to alternate worlds? This question is at the heart of Michael P. Kube-McDowell's novel, which begins with a businessman from a different America who stumbles across a gateway to a number of parallel Earths. His discovery is exploited by a U.S. government in a world where it is losing the Cold War. Initially using it as a means of gaining new technologies, the president is emboldened by its existence to take increasingly aggressive measures that risk annihilation by the superior Soviet forces, secure in the existence of an alternate world refuge should it occur. Yet as he pushes the world closer to nuclear war, a growing number of people in his world and another work to stop him before it is too late.