The Star Seekers (Winston Science Fiction)

When man tackles the first really long journey - across twenty-six trillion miles of uncharted space - to the nearest star, it will take him two hundred years to complete the flight. Not until the sixth generation nears maturity will the starship reach its destination. Around this fascinating theme, Milton Lesser has woven a tale of the first starship's final days of flight. He pictures the ship as a hollowed-out asteroid composed of four concentric circles - a world in which civilization has deteriorated and superstition risen to a high pitch, making those within unaware of the fact that they are traveling through space or that their journey is destined to end. All Mikal knew when he embarked on the "Journey of the Four Circles" was that every eighteen-year-old from Astrosphere, the outermost circle, must visit each of the other circles if he hoped to become an Enginer. But before he completed his trip, he unearthed startling truths that threw the four circles into a state of chaos. Gradually Mikal discovered that unless the people of the four circles took immediate action the ship was doomed to crash. Mikal's desperate efforts to unite the four circles in order to save their world is a story of rising tension and clashing interests. Not only is this a tale of man's triumph over the barriers of space, but a fabulously exciting epic of civilization's victory over superstition and complacency. With subtle satire the author has written one of the most realistic and unforgettable stories ever to appear in the science fiction field.