Dayton's Crossing, in rural Victoria, is a town alone. Beyond its farms and factories is the Quarantine Line, that separates the last island of human civilisation from the
parched reaches of Australia, out of which no word has come for forty years, since the Spiraxides plague which annihilated the human race. Death never came to Dayton's Crossing,
and no one knows why, nor has there been time to ponder the point in the perpetual struggle to preserve all that is left as a functioning society.
Maria Thompson was born into this world, works for the City as a ranger with the run of a domain eighty kilometres across and containing 9000 souls. To find her partner in
life was almost a miracle. Angie Sims is one of the few computer experts left, who models for City Hall to predict the critical needs of agriculture to support the demograph.
Together they have shared a private ecstasy, but also a private agony for Angie's simulations have pointed to the overwhelming probability that Dayton's Crossing cannot be the
only island of survivors in the world ... which verges on treason, for the ruling Council long ago made it a crime to cross the Quarantine Line, meanwhile working their citizens
ever harder in the name of survival while the gap between labourers and the elite grows wider.
Every few years, some dissatisfied citizen makes the "Run to Freedom," crosses the line and goes in search of whatever exists Outside. None have ever returned, at least none
the public has ever learned of. What dread secret lies out there? Why did death never come? Is the only island of the old world in danger of tearing itself apart? And how can
two women make a difference?
Angie can predict what is out there, Maria can make the Run, and though it may cost them everything they have in their world, their freedom, even their lives, the need to uncover
the truth propels them into a choice from which there is no return.
Legend says there is a place where all roads end. But when Maria finds that stretch of terminal bitumen, her adventure has barely begun.
