He held the power of life after the world's end!

In four days the world was coming to an end! The exploding sun would burn every living thing on Earth to a cinder! In Simsville, it was Bill Easson who got the job of picking those fit to escape. He had to choose ten people - men, women, or children - out of its desperate, hysterical three thousand.

Whom should he pick - the beautiful, the bold, or the clever? Did they really have a chance to reach a new world in the rickety, jerry-built, inadequate space boat that would be given them? Would cold and hostile Mars welcome them?