When the space station that Vernon Bentley works on is attacked and destroyed he scrambles into one of the few remaining escape pods in a desperate bid to survive. Unfortunately for Vernon no one has bothered to update the computer, which insists on forcing him to follow a series of obsolete laws and regulations and electrocutes or sedates him when he refuses. As well as Vernon’s growing dependency upon the sedatives, he also has to contend with the unknown craft which appears to be following the pod and the computer’s tendency to navigate into meteor clouds when it doesn’t like the direction the conversation is taking. All in all Vernon is beginning to realize that his chances of survival are looking very, very slim.