Kerrigan was a legend of his own life-time. He was the kind of electric personality around whom strange stories accumulate like iron filings dancing towards a magnet. When Kerrigan failed to return from a special mission in 2178 the stories grew wilder. Some of his crew refused to believe he was dead, others went to look for him. By 2180 it was as fashionable to go to Lunar Base to look for Kerrigan as it had been fashionable to hunt monsters in Loch Ness two centuries before.

His brother Harry was open minded about the stories, even a little sickened by the transport companies who were cashing in on Kerrigan's disappearance. Then Harry met Susan Croft and his opinions of the transport companies changed a little. Susan was a telepath and she believed that Kerrigan was trying to contact her. Lunar, however, is a big, empty, dusty place and it was worse than looking for a needle in a haystack. Then one day they saw Kerrigan, or something that looked like Kerrigan...