Prologue

In 2096 a badly maintained aircar travelling far faster than was wise, was thrown into a quick turn by its reckless young driver and flipped right over. This manoeuvre quickly turned into a power dive, and from 2000 feet it dropped between the buildings below on to a public corridor. The driver was killed instantly, of course; so were two people who were hit by the body of the aircar after it bounced. About twenty other people were injured, but a little girl, Jacqui Mountjoy, escaped unhurt from the very middle of the wreckage.

As the injured were treated and the two corpses removed, it quickly became apparent that Jacqui had become that very rare phenomenon at the end of the twenty-first century, a child orphan. Since nobody quite knew what to do the medibots gathered her with the injured and she was taken to hospital.

Infant orphans were rare because the passing of the various Family Health Acts in the 2050s and their subsequent implementation by ever-stricter measures, culminated in the so-called Planning Virus which meant that conception was only possible by taking a fertility pill, the distribution of which was strictly controlled by the United World Government. Thus there were no unwanted children, and virtually no defective children, who had been the main reason for orphanages. Now there were so few parentless infants that there really was no organised system for caring for them when the rare occasion arose.