Circle of Confusion

The story depicts a human-engineered system that concentrates sunlight to warm a distant, resource-rich planet, using space stations to create a multi-element lens combining electro- and magneto-gravitic fields. Station supervisor John McBride learns that pilot Sandra Drake intends to fly through the lens axis despite prohibitions, and technicians scramble as her ship, the Lady Luck, enters the magneto-gravitic front element and stops dangerously close. The narrative centers on efforts to prevent and repair catastrophic lens failure and on the technical, institutional, and personal pressures that arise when ambitious spaceflight meets fragile planetary engineering.