Realising their predicament, the crew decide to land on the moon and attempt to survive the flight out of the Solar System, wherever it may take them. However, on their approach to the moon, revealed to be a camouflaged alien spacecraft, Lind and her crew are caught in the field of the ship's inertialess drive, causing them to travel farther and faster than expected, and beyond their capacity to return to Earth. The Rockhopper, deemed the only ship capable of catching up to Janus, is asked to undertake the task of pursuing the moon, sending back as much information as possible before being forced to turn back by the limitations of fuel and supplies.

While on a routine mission, Lind is informed that Saturn's moon Janus has deviated from its normal orbit, and is accelerating out of the solar system. To explain her role, the chronology is then pushed back to the early days of humanity's manned exploration of the solar system, where it is explained that Lind is the captain of the Rockhopper, a spacecraft used for mining cometary ice.

Pushing Ice begins in the distant future, where the elected rulers of the 'Congress of the Lindblad Ring' gather to decide on a suitable ceremony to honour a woman they consider responsible for the technological advancement and territorial expansion of the future human race, Bella Lind.

Pushing ice reynolds