The Tracker

Set in the year 15,701 this is the story of Caleb Stone, the eldest son and black sheep of the illustrious Stone family and vast Stone industrial empire. On the run from his enemies, Caleb is forced to become a Tracker, an individual picked by chance whose task is to track down criminals who are beyond the capabilities of local planetary resources. Most Trackers are dead by their seventh track but Caleb manages to survive to his twentieth, when he is allowed to retire.
A year later he is asked to solve a riddle to find a river, set, it is believed, in a remote part of the galaxy; a task which all agree is ridiculous. This is the story of Caleb's search for the lost river and what he finds there. It is also a love story.