Richard Carpenter, a forty year old boatyard worker living on Long Island in New York, has just been told by his doctor that he has cancer again and that it will kill him within one year"s time. He has been plagued by medical problems for most of his life and recent genetic research seems to indicate that he has inherited faulty DNA from some relative whose own health was negatively affected by environmental factors. All of this points to Richard"s grandfather who was an alcoholic and exposed to numerous noxious chemicals during his time of working on the U.S. Navy"s first submarines. Things get worse when the boatyard that Richard has been working at is forced to shut down, but he answers a job ad run by the Brookhaven National Laboratory for a position that requires many of the welding and construction skills that he has learned. He is hired to work on a top secret project that turns out to involve time travel, and when the project funding is cut and they have to rush their final...