Search Worlds Without End

Hugo and Nebula Award winning novelette. It originally appeared in New Worlds, #185 December 1968. The story has been reprinted many times. It can be found in the anthologies:

• World's Best Science Fiction: 1969, edited by Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr
• Nebula Award Stories Five (1970), edited by James Blish
• The Shores Beneath (1971), edited by James Sallis
• The Hugo Winners, Volume 2: (1963-70) (1971), edited by Isaac Asimov
• The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume III (1981), edited by George W. Proctor and Arthur C. Clarke
• The Best of the Nebulas (1989), edited by Ben Bova
• Nebula Awards Showcase 2015, edited by Greg Bear

It is included in the collections Driftglass (1971), Distant Stars (1981), The Complete Nebula Award-Winning Fiction (1986), Driftglass/Starshards (1993) and Aye, and Gomorrah: And Other Stories (2003).

6000 years hence, long after Earth has succumbed to pollution, the human race is dispersed throughout the solar system on huge living islands; "synes," whose production is monopolized by the mysterious, benevolent Sisterhood, have replaced machines and computers in the metal-poor economy of space; and two empires, the Imperium of Aresia near Mars and the Trojan Regency of Jupiter, both running short of usable matter, are at loggerheads over possession of the asteroid belt--with "The Hand of Man" (a reactionary, military theocracy) eager to seize control.

So, to patch up the empires' quarrel, princess Linsang of the Regency is supposed to wed the Aresian ambassador--but she poisons the unappealing fellow instead. Then Linsang, sync expert Dyson Tessier, and Pantolog Five (an encyclopedia-syne in the shape of a cheetah) are captured and taken to a distant, eccentric cultural outpost--where they learn that war has broken out. And from there they must journey to abandoned, legendary Earth... to find a means to defeat the Hand of Man.

Devastation from the nukewar shattered civilization and left a planet both primitive and ripe for rebirth--or retaking. While the balance of power has fallen to avaricious, amoral barons, a handful of humanity still holds hope of a future worth fighting for or dying to defend. If a better life inside the hellground exists, Ryan Cawdor and his friends will find it.

The Deathlands feudal system may be hell on earth but it must be protected from invaders from Shadow Earth, a parallel world stripped clean of its resources by the ruling conglomerate and its white coats. Ryan and his band had a near-fatal encounter with these genetically enhanced aggressors and their advanced weaponry and wags once before. Only a fatal chink in enemy armor saved planet Earth from plunder. Now, these superhuman predators are back, ready to topple the hellscape's baronies one by one.

Helix is a fast-paced action adventure novel following the plight of four humans when they crashland on what they think is a desolate, ice-bound planet. Daylight brings the discovery that the planet is one of thousands arranged in a vast spiral wound about a central sun. They set off to discover a more habitable, Earth-like world and come across strange races of aliens, and life-threatening perils, on their way.

The Helix: a vast spiral of ten thousand worlds turning around its sun. Aeons ago, the enigmatic Builders constructed the Helix as a refuge for alien races on the verge of extinction.

Two hundred years ago, humankind came to the Helix aboard a great colony ship, and the Builders conferred on them the mantle of peacekeepers. For that long, peace has reigned on the Helix. But when shuttle pilot Jeff Ellis crash-lands on the world of Phandra, he interrupts a barbarous invasion from the neighbouring Sporelli - who scheme to track down and exterminate Ellis before he can return to New Earth and inform the peacekeepers.

Helix Wars, sequel to the best-selling Helix, is a fast-paced adventure novel about the ultimate threat to the Helix itself.

The Golden Helix is a selection of Sturgeon's own favorites from among his many beautiful and unabashedly romantic fantasies. Each story is prefaced with a brief discussion by the author. "A master storyteller certain to fascinate all sorts of readers..." -- Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Contents:

• Introduction (The Golden Helix) - (1979) - essay
• The Golden Helix - (1954) - novella
• The Man Who Lost the Sea - (1959) - shortstory
• And Now the News... - (1956) - novelette
• The Clinic - (1953) - shortstory
• ...And My Fear Is Great... - (1953) - novella
• The Ultimate Egoist - (1941) - novelette
• The Skills of Xanadu - (1956) - novelette
• The Dark Room - (1953) - novelette
• Yesterday Was Monday - (1941) - shortstory
• "I Say... Ernest..." - (1973) - essay

Like the twisted strands of mutant chromosomes, an insidious alien conspiracy winds its way through the entire Alpha Quadrant, just as it stretches across several years of Starfleet history -- beginning near the very start of Captain Picard's command of the Starship Enterprise!

It is only the first year of the U.S.S. Enterprise-D's ongoing mission when a virulent epidemic strikes the populace of Archaria III, endangering the lives of thousands and provoking acts of mob violence against those believed responsible for the spread of the disease. While Data and Natasha Yar team up to uncover the true origins of the virus, Dr. Crusher finds that the implacable sickness resists all her efforts to find a cure. The desperate quest for a cure becomes even more urgent when Deanna Troi succumbs to the dreaded plague... again and again.

Like a strand of mutating DNA, a deadly conspiracy winds its way through the entire Alpha Quadrant, just as it stretches across several years of Starfleet history -- even to the Cardassian space station that will someday be known as Deep Space Nine.

A virulent plague has stricken Terok Nor, striking down both the enslaved Bajorans and Cardassian oppressors, who blame each other for the growing epidemic. Dr. Katherine Pulaski, late of the Starship Enterprise, must work with the tyrannical Gul Dukat, as well as a rebel spy named Kira Nerys, to discover the true source of an infection that threatens them all!

Like the biological weapons they employ, a sinister conspiracy has spread across the Delta Quadrant and across many years of Starfleet History. Now the mysterious menace surfaces again -- to strike at the heart of the Romulan Empire.

An artificial virus has infected the entire Romulan ruling family. Ambassador Spock must put aside his efforts at unification to summon his old friend, Dr. Leonard McCoy, who discovers that the only hope for a cure lies with a long lost Romulan heir whose blood and tissues have not been contaminated by the virus. But can the heir be found before the collapse of a ruling dynasty throws the entire Empire into chaos?

Like intertwining filaments of human and alien DNA, a ruthless campaign of revenge has threaded its way through the galaxy, touching billions of sentient beings -- and changing forever the life of Lieutenant Thomas Riker.

Tom Riker, an identical duplicate of the Starship Enterprise's first officer, is serving as a Starfleet medical courier when he encounters a group of Maquis renegades, led by a former Starfleet officer named Chakotay. A planet in the Demilitarized Zone, now controlled by the Cardassians, has been stricken with the same deadly disease that has plagued the Alpha Quadrant for years, and only Riker can get the medical supplies the Maquis so desperately need. But the Cardassians would rather destroy all life on the planet than risk letting the epidemic spread!

Like a lethal bacillus coursing through the bloodstream of the galaxy, a fiendish master plan has spread death and terror across the 24th century -- until two heroic captains risk everything to stamp out the evil at its source!

For more than a decade, since the very beginning of the Starship Enterprise's mission, unknown enemies have unleashed a string of deadly biological weapons throughout the Alpha Quadrant, inflicting ghastly epidemics upon the Romulans, the Cardassians, the Bajorans, and even the Federation. Now, at long last, Captain Jean-Luc Picard joins forces with Captain Mackenzie Calhoun of the Starship Excalibur to track down and confront the hidden architects of the plagues -- and avenge the deaths of thousands!

An insidious plot for revenge has spanned several years in the life of Jean-Luc Picard, but how did this merciless vendetta get started? Like a double helix curling back on itself, the final answer lies at the very beginning...

A series of terrorist attacks have heightened tensions between two alien races, bringing an entire sector to the brink of interplanetary war. While Picard, captain of the U.S.S. Stargazer, struggles to keep the peace, Lieutenant Commander Jack Crusher must team up with a Vulcan officer named Tuvok to uncover the hidden architect of the attacks, but the outcome of their quest would breed dire consequences for the future.

After a worldwide disaster strikes Earth, the planet is taken over by a fanatical religious theocracy. Scientist Victor Hansen flees with a staff of non-genetically modified humans and young members of his newly created race, the Selkies, to Marseguro, a distant water world. But their peace and freedom is threatened when a traitor calls forth a strike force from Earth, and Victor's own grandson, Richard, is with them. What Richard Hansen discovers may alter not only his own destiny, but that of Marseguro and Earth as well.

Marseguro, a water world far from Earth, is home to a colony of humans and the Selkies, a water-dwelling race created from modified human DNA. For seventy years the colony has lived in peace. Then Earth discovers Marseguro, and a strike force is sent to eradicate this "abomination." But Marseguro has created a genetically tailored plague to use against Earth's Holy Warriors.

With the enemy defeated, the people of Marseguro feel they are safe. But Chris Keating, the traitor who signaled Marseguro's location to the Holy Warriors, has fled to Earth, unknowingly carrying the deadly plague within him. The people of Marseguro feel they must send a ship to Earth with a life-saving vaccine. Only time will tell what awaits them when they reach their destination.

ORIGINAL SIN

Piers Rameau, a brilliant geneticist, was offered the chance to help design mankind's replacement--Original Man, a smarter, stronger, swifter race based on manipulated human DNA. But Rameau refused, and chose to follow his own path.

Now Kuno Gunnarsson, creator of Original Man and Rameau's would-be employer, is dead—but his superior creation lives on. And one faction of Original Man is determined to wrest control of the galaxy from the inferior race. A brutal attack destroys both Rameau's home planet and the satellite that has become his world. One tragic casualty is Dakini, a fragile, genetically altered dancer who had become Rameau's reason to live.

The sole survivor, he finds himself a prisoner of Gunnarsson Prime, a clone of the original creator, on board the Jumpship Langstaff. Against his will, Rameau is enlisted as the ship's wartime medical officer. As a doctor, he swore an oath to do no harm. As a man, he swears blood vengeance on the inhuman killers who destroyed everything he ever loved....