ALAN KEMP HAD A DREAM FEW SPACEMEN EVER SAW COME TRUE. BUT IN THE RIM WORLD ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE...

Alan Kemp was a man obsessed. Stranded with his crew on the Rim planet Elsinore, he saw a chance to realise that dream - and took it. When a gausjammer crash-landed on Elsinore, Kemp rebuild the second-hand, obsolete starship and set out to establish a shuttle between the Rim planets.

But before they reached their destination, Kemp and his comrades were waylaid by an alien colony. A colony inhabited by giant mechanical spiders who imprisoned their captives in a palace of pleasure whey the chance - or desire to escape - is precisely zero.