Search Worlds Without End

Table of Contents:

• 11 - Jack McDevitt, History Builder - essay by Martin L. Shoemaker
• 15 - Searching for Oz - (2013) - short story
• 23 - The Law of Gravity Isn't Working on Rainbow Bridge - (2003) - short story
• 41 - The Adventure of the Southsea Trunk - (2008) - short story
• 61 - Combinations - (1986) - short story
• 75 - It's a Long Way to Alpha Centauri - (1990) - short story
• 89 - Lucy - (2012) - novelette
• 119 - Listen Up, Nitwits - (2012) - short story
• 139 - Midnight Clear - (1993) - short story
• 155 - The Lost Equation - (2016) - short story
• 175 - Blood Will Tell - (2016) - short story by Thomas A. Easton and Jack McDevitt
• 179 - Blinker - (1994) - short story
• 197 - Friends in High Places - (2007) - short story
• 207 - Maiden Voyage - (2012) - short story
• 227 - Waiting at the Altar - (2012) - short story
• 243 - The Play's the Thing - (2013) - short story
• 253 - Oculus - (2002) - short story
• 269 - Good Intentions - (1998) - novelette with Stanley Schmidt
• 299 - Molly's Kids - (2008) - short story
• 313 - Ships in the Night - (1993) - novella
• 379 - The Pegasus Project - (2016) - short story
• 395 - Cathedral - (2013) - novelette
• 419 - The Last Dance - (2017) - short story
• 431 - Weighing In - short story
• 447 - A Voice in the Night - (2013) - short story

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Microcosms (2004), edited by Gregory Benford. It can also be found in the anthology Year's Best SF 10 (2005), edited by David G. Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer. The story is included in the collections Outbound (2006) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, April 1983. The story can also be found in the antholgoy The Year's Best Science Fiction: First Annual Collection (1984), edited by Gardner Dozois, and the collections Standard Candles (1996) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Jack McDevitt loves a good mystery. And he enjoys baffling his readers with enigmas like why, after so many years of listening with no results, would a SETI director hear an artificial signal and keep it quiet? Why might an astronomer at a space station, facing imminent death from a solar radiation blast, send off a frantic message that he had discovered a Clyde Tombaugh Special? Tombaugh, of course, was the discoverer of Pluto.

What really happened to Christopher Sim, the George Washington of the war against the Ashiyyur? Why had a beloved artist at the top of his profession, with everything to live for, killed himself? Why had a brilliant young biologist discovered how life got started on Earth, but neglected to tell anyone?

And there are of course other anomalies to be encountered in McDevitt's work: A computer threatens the literary world, while a time traveler worries the churches. One artificial intelligence runs for president, and another claims to be a Catholic and demands access to the sacraments. Two friends discover that whenever they get together, shuttles crash, wars break out, or tidal waves hammer a coastline.

A researcher watches endless fighting on another world and finally rebels against the Academy's hands-off doctrine. Meantime, a crewman stranded light-years from Earth, entertains himself by intercepting radio broadcasts from home, originally transmitted during World War II.

Among other questions these tales will answer: What might happen when people in a research lab literally try to play God. Why you don't ever, ever, want to turn out the lights at Bolton's Tower in the Dakotas. Why someone might want to blow up a star. And why it would be a really good idea if Hatch kept his hands off the mallet. These, and twenty-three other cosmic rides, await the reader.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction: Jack McDevitt, This One's for You - (2009) - essay by Robert J. Sawyer
• Foreword - (2009) - essay
• Cryptic - (1983) - shortstory
• The Fort Moxie Branch - (1988) - shortstory
• Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City - (2001) - shortstory
• Tweak - (2007) - shortstory
• Melville on Iapetus - (1983) - shortstory
• Lighthouse - (2006) - shortstory with Michael Shara
• Cool Neighbor - (2007) - novelette with Michael Shara
• Whistle - (1989) - shortstory
• In the Tower - (1987) - novelette
• Ignition - (2005) - shortstory
• Indomitable - (2008) - shortstory
• Last Contact - (1988) - shortstory
• Never Despair - (1997) - shortstory
• Windows - (2004) - shortstory
• Dutchman - (1987) - novelette
• The Tomb - (1991) - shortstory
• Promises to Keep - (1984) - novelette
• To Hell with the Stars - (1987) - shortstory
• The Mission - (2004) - shortstory
• Report from the Rear - (1998) - shortstory
• Black to Move - (1982) - shortstory
• The Far Shore - (1982) - shortstory
• Sunrise - (1988) - novelette
• Kaminsky at War - (2006) - novella
• Fifth Day - (2007) - shortstory
• Deus Tex - (1996) - shortstory
• Gus - (1991) - novelette
• Welcome to Valhalla - (2008) - shortstory with Kathryn Lance
• Tyger - (1991) - shortstory
• Auld Lang Boom - (1992) - shortstory
• Cruising Through Deuteronomy - (1995) - shortstory
• The Candidate - (2006) - shortstory
• Act of God - (2004) - shortstory
• Ellie - (1995) - novelette
• Time's Arrow - (1989) - shortstory
• Dead in the Water - (1999) - shortstory
• Henry James, This One's for You - (2005) - shortstory
• Time Travellers Never Die - (1996) - novella

The stars are ours. Again.

After an effort to disable an ancient stargate discovered on Sioux land was stymied, the local people cooperated with Federal officials and others in exploring the strange worlds linked by the alien technology. Secrets old and new are uncovered but prove difficult to explain. Who built the stargate? What connection do the builders have with the worlds and intelligent species the various doors open to reveal?

The Roadmakers left only ruins behind -- but what magnificent ruins! Their concrete highways still cross the continent. Their cups, combs and jewelry are found in every Illyrian home. They left behind a legend,too -- a hidden sanctuary called Haven, where even now the secrets of their civilization might still be found.

Chaka's brother was one of those who sought to find Haven and never returned. But now Chaka has inherited a rare Roadmaker artifact -- a book called A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court -- which has inspired her to follow in his footsteps. Gathering an unlikely band of companions around her, Chaka embarks upon a journey where she will encounter bloodthirsty rirver pirates, electronic ghosts who mourn their lost civilization and machines that skim over the ground and air. Ultimately, the group will learn the truth about their own mysterious past.

Essays by space scientists and engineers on the coolest ways and means to get humanity to the stars along with stories by an all-star assortment of talespinners abounding with Hugo and Nebula award winners: Ben Bova, Mike Resnick, Jack McDevitt, Michael Bishop, Sarah A. Hoyt and more.

Some humans may be content staying in one place, but many of us are curious about what's beyond the next village, the next ocean, the next horizon. Are there others like us out there? How will we reach them?

Wonderful questions. Now get ready for some highly informative and entertaining answers.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Les Johnson
• Introduction - essay by Les Johnson and Jack McDevitt
• Choices - short story by Les Johnson
• A Country for Old Men - novelette by Ben Bova
• Antimatter Starships - essay by Gregory L. Matloff
• Lucy - novelette by Jack McDevitt
• Lesser Beings - novelette by Charles E. Gannon
• Fusion Starship - essay by Gregory L. Matloff
• Project Icarus: A Theoretical Design Study for an Interstellar Spacecraft - essay by Dr. Richard Obousy
• Design Flaw - novelette by Louise Marley
• Twenty Lights to "The Land of Snow" - novella by Michael Bishop
• Solar and Beamed Energy Sails - essay by Les Johnson
• The Big Ship and the Wise Old Owl - novelette by Sarah A. Hoyt
• Siren Song - short story by Mike Resnick

Nebula Award nominated novelette. It originally appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, June 1998. The story can also be found in the Jack McDevitt collection Ships in the Night and Other Stories (2005).

Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in Subterranean, Issue #2 and can aslo be found in the collections Outbound (2006) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

We are alone. That is the verdict, after centuries of Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence missions and space exploration. The only living things in the Universe are found on the Nine Worlds settled from Earth, and the starships that knit them together. Or so it's believed, until Dr. Kimberly Brandywine sets out to find what happened to her clone-sister Emily, who, after the final, unsuccessful manned SETI expedition, disappeared along with the rest of her ship's crew.

Following a few ominous clues, Kim discovers the ship's log was faked. Something happened out there in the darkness between the stars, and she's prepared to go to any length to find answers. Even if it means giving up her career...stealing a starship...losing her lover. Kim is about to discover the truth about her sister -- and about more than she ever dared imagine.

It's the 21st century, and all is right with the world. Or so it seems.

Vice President Charlie Haskell, who will travel anywhere for a photo op, is about to cut the ribbon for the just-completed American Moonbase. The first Mars voyage is about to leave high orbit, with a woman at the helm. Below, the world is marveling at a rare solar eclipse.

But all that is right is about to go disastrously wrong when an amateur astronomer discovers a new comet. Named for its discover, Tomikois a "sun-grazer,"an interstellar wanderer with a hundred times the mass and ten times the speed of other comets. And it is headed straight for our moon.

In less than five days, if scientists' predictions are right, Tomiko will crash into the moon, shattering it into a cloud of superheated gas, dust, and huge chunks of rock that will rain down on the earth, causing chaos and killer storms, possibly tidal waves inundating entire cities... or worse: a single apocalyptic worldwide "extinction event."

In the meantime, the population of Moonbase must be evacuated by a hastily assembled fleet of shuttle rockets. There isn't room, or time enough, for everyone. And the vice president, who rashly promised to be last off ("I will lock the door and turn off the lights"), is trying to figure out how to get away without eating his words.

Nebula Award nominated short story. Originally appeared in Artemis #5, Summer 2001. It can also be found in the Nebula Awards Showcase 2004, edited by Vonda N. McIntyre, and the collections Outbound (2006) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

Read the full story for free at the Baen website.

Table of Contents:

• Ways of Considering an Absent Introduction - (2006) - essay by Barry N. Malzberg
• The Candidate - (2006) - short story
• Henry James, This One's for You - (2005) - short story
• Date with Destiny - (1991) - novelette
• Windows - (2004) - short story
• Combinations - (1986) - short story
• Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City - (2001) - short story
• The Mission - (2004) - short story
• Melville on Iapetus - (1983) - short story
• The Far Shore - (1982) - short story
• In the Tower - (1987) - novelette
• Whistle - (1989) - short story
• Valkyrie - (1991) - short story
• Act of God - (2004) - short story
• Ignition - (2005) - short story
• Lighthouse - (2006) - short story with Michael Shara
• Collaboration for "Lighthouse", With Michael Shara - (2006) - essay with Michael Shara
• The Big Downtown - (2005) - novella
• Where Do You Get Those Crazy Ideas? - (1999) - essay
• Infinity Beach - essay
• Why We Should All Be Reading Science Fiction - essay
• Blundering Through - essay
• A Golden Dozen: Twelve Stories To Demonstrate to Reluctant Seniors What They're Missing - (2000) - essay
• Science Fiction: An Eye on Tomorrow - (2003) - essay
• Interview, conducted by Thomas Harbach for PHANTASTISCH 2004 - interview of Jack McDevitt - interview by Thomas Harbach
• Celebrating Jack McDevitt - (2003) - essay by Michael Bishop
• Bibliography - essay by uncredited

This novelette originally appeared in Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, December 1984. It can also be found in the anthologies The Year's Best Science Fiction: Second Annual Collection (1985), edited by Gardner Dozois, Christmas Stars (1992), edited by David G. Hartwell, and Explorers: SF Adventures to Far Horizons (2000), edited by Gardner Dozois. The story is included in the collections Standard Candles (1996) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

Table of Contents:

• 11 - Introduction (Ships in the Night and Other Stories) - essay by Mike Resnick
• 17 - Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City - (2001) - short story
• 21 - The Far Shore - (1982) - short story
• 39 - Good Intentions - (1998) - novelette with Stanley Schmidt
• 73 - Time's Arrow - (1989) - short story
• 83 - Dead in the Water - (1999) - short story
• 105 - Windrider - (1994) - short story
• 123 - Deus Tex - (1996) - short story
• 135 - Report from the Rear - (1998) - short story
• 143 - Oculus - (2002) - short story
• 161 - Last Contact - (1988) - short story
• 183 - Midnight Clear - (1993) - short story
• 201 - Blinker - (1994) - short story
• 223 - The Tomb - (1991) - short story
• 241 - Ships in the Night - (1993) - novella

Jack McDevitt was a fixture for years inside the pages of the top science-fiction magazines. This edition brings together for the first time sixteen of McDevitt's greatest tales. It is here where the full extent of McDevitt's talent is at last on display. In Standard Candles, wonders abound, with the lucidity and grace that have become McDevitt's trademarks.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1996) - essay by Charles Sheffield
• Standard Candles - (1994) - shortstory
• Tidal Effects - (1985) - shortstory
• Translations from the Colosian - (1984) - shortstory
• Black to Move - (1982) - shortstory
• The Fort Moxie Branch - (1988) - shortstory
• Promises to Keep - (1984) - novelette
• Gus - (1991) - novelette
• To Hell with the Stars - (1987) - shortstory
• Ellie - (1995) - novelette
• The Jersey Rifle - (1988) - shortstory
• Cruising Through Deuteronomy - (1995) - shortstory
• Tyger - (1991) - shortstory
• Auld Lang Boom - (1992) - shortstory
• Dutchman - (1987) - novelette
• Cryptic - (1983) - shortstory
• Time Travelers Never Die - (1996) - novella

This short story originally appeared in Lightspeed, June 2010. It can also be found in the anthologies Year's Best SF 16 (2011), edited by Kathryn Cramer and David G. Hartwell, Lightspeed: Year One (2011), edited by John Joseph Adams, and The Eagle Has Landed: 50 Years of Lunar Science Fiction (2019), edited by Neil Clarke.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Two science fiction masters--Jack McDevitt and Mike Resnick--team up to deliver a classic thriller in which one man uncovers the hidden history of the United States space program...

"Houston, we have a problem..."

Formerly a cynical, ambitious PR man, Jerry Culpepper finally found a client he could believe in when he was hired as NASA's public affairs director. Proud of the Agency's history and sure of its destiny, he was thrilled to be a part of its future.

But public disinterest and budget cuts changed that future. Now, a half century after the first Moon landing, Jerry feels like the only one with stars in his eyes.

Then a fifty-year-old secret about the Apollo XI mission is revealed, and he finds himself embroiled in the biggest controversy of the twenty-first century, one that will test his ability--and his willingness--to spin the truth about a conspiracy of reality-altering proportions...

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Full Spectrum (1988), edited by Lou Aronica and Shawna McCarthy. It can aso be found in the anthology Nebula Awards 24 (1990), edited by Michael Bishop and the collections Standard Candles (1998) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009).

Readd the full story for free at the Baen website.

From a remote corner of the galaxy a message is being sent. The continuous beats of a pulsar have become odd, irregular... artificial. it can only be a code. Frantically, a research team struggles to decipher the alien communication. And what the scientists discover is destined to shake the foundations of empires around this world - from Wall Street to the Vatican.

Hugo and Nebula Award nominated novella. It originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, May 1996. The story can also be found in the anthologis Time Machines: The Greatest Time Travel Stories Ever Written (1997), edited by Bill Adler, Jr. and The Best Time Travel Stories of All Time (2003), edited by Barry N. Malzberg. It is included in the collections Standard Candles (1996) and Cryptic: The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt (2009). It was expanded to the full novel Time Travelers Never Die in 2009.

When physicist Michael Shelborne mysteriously vanishes, his son Shel discovers that he had constructed a time travel device. Fearing his father may be stranded in time-or worse-Shel enlists the aid of Dave MacElroy, a linguist, to accompany him on the rescue mission.

Their journey through history takes them from the enlightenment of Renaissance Italy through the American Wild West to the civil-rights upheavals of the 20th century. Along the way, they encounter a diverse cast of historical greats, sometimes in unexpected situations. Yet the elder Shelborne remains elusive.

And then Shel violates his agreement with Dave not to visit the future. There he makes a devastating discovery that sends him fleeing back through the ages, and changes his life forever.

Christopher Sim changed mankind's history forever when he forged a rag-tag group of misfits into the weapon that broke the alien Ashiyyur. But now, one man believes Sim was a fraud, and Alex must follow the legend into the heart of the alien galaxy to confront a truth far stranger than any fiction.

The luxury space yacht Polaris carried an elite group of the wealthy and curious thousands of light-years from Earth to witness a spectacular stellar phenomenon. It never returned. The search party sent to investigate found the Polaris empty and adrift in space, the fate of its pilot and passengers a mystery.

Sixty years later, prominent antiquities dealer Alex Benedict is determined to find the truth about Polaris-no matter how far he must travel across the stars, no matter the risk.

Thousands of years after an entire colony mysteriously disappears, antiquities dealer Alex Benedict comes into possession of a cup that seems to be from the Seeker, one of the colony's ships. Investigating the provenance of the cup, Alex and his assistant Chase follow a deadly trail to the Seeker-strangely adrift in a system barren of habitable worlds. But their discovery raises more questions than it answers, drawing Alex and Chase into the very heart of danger.

Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict receives a cryptic message asking for help from celebrated writer Vicki Greene - who has been mind-wiped. She has no memory of her past life, or of her plea for assistance. But she has transferred an enormous sum of money to Alex, also without explanation. The answers to this mystery lie on the most remote of human worlds, where Alex will uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval - a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden, though the price of that silence is unimaginable…

A new novel of the fantastic unknown by the national bestselling author of Time Travelers Never Die.

Eccentric Sunset Tuttle spent his life searching in vain for forms of alien life. Thirty years after his death, a stone tablet inscribed with cryptic, indecipherable symbols is found in the possession of Tuttle's onetime lover, and antiquities dealer Alex Benedict is anxious to discover what secret the tablet holds. It could be proof that Tuttle had found what he was looking for. To find out, Benedict and his assistant embark on their own voyage of discovery-one that will lead them directly into the path of a very determined assassin who doesn't want those secrets revealed.

Forty-one years ago the renowned physicist Chris Robin vanished. Before his disappearance, his fringe science theories about the existence of endless alternate universes had earned him both admirers and enemies.

Alex Benedict and Chase Kolpath discover that Robin had several interstellar yachts flown far outside the planetary system where they too vanished. And following Robin's trail into the unknown puts Benedict and Kolpath in danger...

Thousands of years ago, artifacts of the early space age were lost to rising oceans and widespread turmoil. Garnett Baylee devoted his life to finding them, only to give up hope. Then, in the wake of his death, one was found in his home, raising tantalizing questions. Had he succeeded after all? Why had he kept it a secret? And where is the rest of the Apollo cache?

Antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his pilot, Chase Kolpath, have gone to Earth to learn the truth. But the trail seems to have gone cold, so they head back home to be present when the Capella, the interstellar transport that vanished eleven years earlier in a time/space warp, is expected to reappear. With a window of only a few hours, rescuing it is of the utmost importance. Twenty-six hundred passengers--including Alex's uncle, Gabriel Benedict, the man who raised him--are on board.

Alex now finds his attention divided between finding the artifacts and anticipating the rescue of the Capella. But time won't allow him to do both. As the deadline for the Capella's reappearance draws near, Alex fears that the puzzle of the artifacts will be lost yet again. But Alex Benedict never forgets and never gives up--and another day will soon come around...

After being lost in space for eleven years, Gabe finally makes his triumphant return to reunite with Alex and Chase and retrieve a possibly alien artifact--which may lead them to solve the greatest archaeological mystery of their careers, in the eighth installment of the Alex Benedict series.

After his return from space, Gabe is trying to find a new life for himself after being presumed dead--just as Alex and Chase are trying to relearn how to live and work without him. But when a seemingly alien artifact goes missing from Gabe's old collection, it grants the group a chance to dive into solving the mystery of its origins as a team, once again.

When a lead on the artifact is tied to a dead pilot's sole unrecorded trip, another clue seems to lead to one of the greatest lingering mysteries of the age: the infamous disappearance of a team of scientists aboard a space station orbiting a black hole--the Amelia Earhart of their time. With any luck, Alex, Chase, and Gabe may be on the trail of the greatest archaeological discovery of their careers...

Centuries after a war with the Mutes, the first aliens to be encountered by humankind, a startling new discovery in the far reaches of the Orion Nebula appears. On a planet with conditions favorable to life, explorer vessel The Columbia comes across a small town seemingly inhabited by an intelligent species not yet discovered.

But when a highly publicized follow-up mission is sent to make contact mere months later, the entire town has vanished, leaving no trace--or such is presumed to be the case until Alex Benedict and his archaeological crew show up to investigate. Officially, their mission is to find concealed artifacts that may have been left behind, but the team's real goal is to solve the mystery of how these aliens disappeared so rapidly--and why. In turns terrifying and miraculous, the answers raise the stakes for every member on board as they look to make their mark on history.

It turned up in a North Dakota wheat field: a triangle, like a shark's fin, sticking up from the black loam. Tom Lasker did what any farmer would have done. He dug it up. And discovered a boat, made of a fiberglass-like material with an utterly impossible atomic number. What it was doing buried under a dozen feet of prairie soil two thousand miles from any ocean, no one knew. True, Tom Lasker's wheat field had once been on the shoreline of a great inland sea, but that was a long time ago - ten thousand years ago.

The Nebula Award-winning author of the Alex Benedict novels and the Priscilla Hutchins novels returns to the world of Ancient Shores in a startling and majestic epic.

A working stargate dating back more than ten thousand years has been discovered in North Dakota, on a Sioux reservation near Devils Lake. Travel through the gate currently leads to three equally mysterious destinations: (1) an apparently empty garden world, quickly dubbed Eden; (2) a strange maze of underground passageways; or (3) a space station with a view of a galaxy that appears to be the Milky Way.

The race to explore and claim the stargate quickly escalates, and those involved divide into opposing camps who view the teleportation technology either as an unprecedented opportunity for scientific research or a disastrous threat to national--if not planetary--security. In the middle of the maelstrom stands Sioux chairman James Walker. One thing is for certain: Questions about what the stargate means for humanity's role in the galaxy cannot be ignored.

Especially since travel through the stargate isn't necessarily only one way...

Many years ago humans made a discovery in the far reaches of the solar system - a huge statue of an alien creature, with a description that defied all efforts of translation. But except for a set of footprints on Jupiter's moon, there is no trace of the race that has left it behind.

A spellbinding epic adventure of discovery, catastrophe, and survival from one of the most masterful storytellers in speculative fiction.

In the year 2204, tragedy and terror forced a scientific team to prematurely evacuate Maleiva III. Twenty-one years later, the opportunity for scientists to study this galactic rarity -- a life-supporting planet -- is about to vanish forever, as a rogue gas giant has invaded the planetary system on a deadly collision course with the world they are now calling Deepsix.

A superluminal pilot for the Academy of Science and Technology, Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins is the only even remotely qualified professional within lightyears of Deepsix. With less than three weeks left before the disaster, she and a small scientific team -- including Randall Nightingale, a survivor of the original expedition who was made the scapegoat for its failure -- must descend to the surface, and glean whatever they can about the doomed planet's lifeforms and lost civilizations.

There is more to this strange and complex world, however, than anyone could have imagined: hidden predators stone cities under the ice remnants of a warlike, primitive society, yet with inexplicable hints of an impossible technology buried in the rubble ... and in orbit around the soon to be demolished planet. The deeper Hutch and her team delve, the more puzzles are revealed within puzzles, and startling discoveries lead only to greater and more perplexing questions.

But then the unthinkable occurs. An earthquake destroys the explorers' only means of escape. As scientists and sightseers who have come to witness the spectacular end of Deepsix watch helplessly from miles above, Hutch and her people must survive somehow on a hostile planet going rapidly mad. And with the clock ticking relentlessly toward an unavoidable apocalypse, they must find some way, any way, to get off before Deepsix plunges like a pebble into the limitless depths of the rampaging gas giant.

From the acclaimed author of Infinity Beach comes the ultimate survival adventure -- a riveting, relentlessly suspenseful, awesomely possible tale with a firm foundation in hard science which showcases the best and the worst aspects of complex human nature. It is yet another stunning achievement by Jack McDevitt, proving without a doubt that he is indeed the true heir to Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke.

Something-or somebody-has left a series of satellites in orbit around various planets in the galaxy. Now a crew sets off to discover the origin of the satellites-and learn if mankind is no longer alone among the stars.

A civilization-destroying omega cloud has switched direction, heading straight for a previously unexplored planetary system -- and its alien society. And suddenly, a handful of brave humans must try to save an entire world -- without revealing their existence.

To boost waning interest in interstellar travel, a mission is sent into deep space to learn the truth about "moonriders," the strange lights supposedly being seen in nearby systems. But the team soon discovers that their odyssey is no mere public-relations ploy, for the moonriders are not a harmless phenomenon. They are very, very dangerous-in a way that no one could possibly have imagined.

When a young physicist unveils an efficient star drive capable of reaching the core of the galaxy, veteran star pilot Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins finds herself back in the deepest reaches of space, and on the verge of discovering the origins of the deadly omega clouds that continue to haunt her.

Priscilla Hutchins has been through many experiences.This is the story of her first unforgettable adventure.…

Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins has finally realized her lifelong dream: She's completed a nerve-bending qualification flight for a pilot's license.

Her timing is far from optimal, however. Faster-than-light travel has only recently become a reality, and the World Space Authority is still learning how to manage long-range missions safely. To make matters worse, efforts to prepare two planets for colonization are killing off native life-forms, outraging people on Earth.So there's not a lot of demand for space pilots.

Priscilla thinks her career may be over before it has begun. But her ambition won't be denied, and soon she is on the bridge of an interstellar ship, working for the corporation that is responsible for the terraforming.

Her working conditions include bomb threats, sabotage, clashes with her employers - and a mission to a world, adrift between the stars, that harbors a life-form unlike anything humanity has ever seen. Ultimately, she will be part of a life-and-death struggle that will test both her capabilities and her character....

From Nebula Award winner Jack McDevitt comes the eighth installment in the popular The Academy series--Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins discovers an interstellar message from a highly advanced race that could be her last chance for a mission before the program is shut down for good.

Hutch has been the Academy's best pilot for decades. She's had numerous first contact encounters and even became a minor celebrity. But world politics have shifted from exploration to a growing fear that the program will run into an extraterrestrial race more advanced than humanity and war.

Despite taking part in the recent scientific breakthrough that rejuvenates the human body and expands one's lifespan, Hutch finds herself as a famous interstellar pilot with little to do, until a message from an alien race arrives.

The message is a piece of music from an unexplored area. Despite the fact that this alien race could pose a great danger and that this message could have taken several thousand years to travel, the program prepares the last interstellar ship for the journey. As the paranoia grows, Hutch and her crew make an early escape--but what they find at the other end of the galaxy is completely unexpected.