When you have an engine with no fuel, and fuel without an engine, and a life-and-death deadline to meet, you have a problem indeed. Unless you are a stubborn Dutchman--and Jan Van Artevelde was the stubbornest Dutchman on Venus.
Allan Stern and his secretary Beatrice Kendricks after they awake in New York City, one thousand years after an asteroid destroys most life on earth. In the third book, Allan marries Beatrice (they finally have sex after two years) and with the people of the Abyss set off to build a new civilization on the surface. Yes they run into a few problems along the way (mostly a tribe of semi-human flesh eaters), but Allan is always able to work things out, with Beatrice by his side.
The trials of a patent lawyer are usually highly technical tribulations--and among the greatest is the fact that Inventors are only slightly less predictable than their Inventions!
The captain had learned to hate. It was his profession--and his personal reason for going on. But even hatred has to be channeled for its maximum use, and no truths exist forever.