Search Worlds Without End

Sturgeon Award nominated novella.

There are dreams we all have as fantasy-reading children. Dreams from the books we've read. Dreams from the stories we've been told. Dreams about the bad things that might happen, to us, to everybody. So... flying saucers, alien abductions, those things the aliens might do... the stuff of adventure and comedy, and even a radiotelescope joke every one of us knows. But what if, when you were a child, the flying saucers did come and take you away? Take you away from your parents and your brothers and sisters. Take you away from school and all your friends. And teachers. And bullies. And homework. Away from everything and everyone you ever knew. Suppose the aliens came and took youto a place where no human being had ever been? And then just left you there, all alone? What would you do? If you're a teenage boy named Wally, you'll come up with something spectacular. "Off on a Starship" is a tale of grand adventure, and a love story that's... unusual.

The story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, September 2003. It can also be foind in the anthologies Best Short Novels: 2004, edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-First Annual Collection (2004), edited by Gardner Dozois.

This short story originally appeared in the anthology Cosmic Powers: The Saga Anthology of Far-Away Galaxies (2017), edited by John Joseph Adams, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2018. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Twelve (2018), edited by Jonathan Strahan, The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Fifth Annual Collection (2018), edited by Gardner Dozois, The Best Science Fiction of the Year: Volume 3 (2018), edited by Neil Clarke, and The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2018, edited by N. K. Jemisin and John Joseph Adams.

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

Table of Contents:

• 1 - The Longest Voyage - essay by Isaac Asimov
• 7 - The Burning of the Brain - [The Instrumentality of Mankind] - short story by Cordwainer Smith
• 19 - Home the Hard Way - novelette by Richard McKenna
• 49 - Potential - short story by Robert Sheckley
• 69 - Bill for Delivery - [Federation of Humanity] - short story by Christopher Anvil
• 91 - Story of a Curse - short story by Doris Pitkin Buck
• 97 - The Oceans Are Wide - novella by Frank M. Robinson
• 177 - Far Centaurus - short story by A. E. van Vogt
• 203 - The Ship Who Sang - [The Ship Who ...] - novelette by Anne McCaffrey
• 227 - Avoidance Situation - novelette by James McConnell
• 273 - Chance Encounter - [John Grimes] - short story by A. Bertram Chandler
• 295 - Allamagoosa - short story by Eric Frank Russell
• 313 - Founding Father - short story by Isaac Asimov
• 323 - Wings Out of Shadow - [Berserker] - novelette by Fred Saberhagen

Nine explorers aboard a powerful AI vessel, Alchemon, are sent to investigate an "anomalous biosignature" on a distant planet. But they soon realize their mission has gone to hell as deadly freakish incidents threaten their lives.

Are these events caused by the tormented psychic mysteriously put aboard at the last minute? Has the crew been targeted by a vengeful corporate psychopath? Are they part of some cruel experiment by the ship's ruthless owners? Or do their troubles originate with the strange alien lifeform retrieved from the planet? A creature that might possess an intelligence beyond human understanding or may perhaps be the spawn of some terrifying supernatural force...

Either way, as their desperation and panic sets in, one thing becomes clear: they're fighting not only for their own survival, but for the fate of all humanity.

Arguably the greatest collaboration in the whole history of comedy!

Bestselling author Douglas Adams wrote the storyline based on his CD-ROM game of the same name (as this novel, not as him, obviously).

Terry Jones of Monty Python wrote the book. In the nude! Parents be warned! Most of the words in this book were written by a naked man!

So. You want to argue with that? All right, we give in.

Starship Titanic is the greatest, most fabulous, most technologically advanced interstellar cruise line ever built. It is like a cross between the Queen Mary, the Chrysler Building, Tutankhamen's tomb, and Venice. Furthermore, it cannot possibly go wrong....

Sadly, however, seconds after its launch it undergoes SMEF, or Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure. And disappears.

Except, everything's got to be somewhere.

Coming home that night, on a little known planet called Earth, Dan and Lucy Gibson find something very large and very, very shiny sticking into their house...

In a distant future in which the empire of humanity has spread throughout the stars, the Xenic Bureau of the Grand Ekumenical Security Directorate investigates any hint of aliens, strange disappearances, or other anomalous events. When rumors spread of the mysterious reappearance of a long-lost battleship, a priest, an alien-killer, and a cashiered starship engineer find themselves caught up in a chase across the empire and into secrets better left forgotten.

This story is available in the collections Two Stories (2011) by Jay Lake and Ken Scholes as well as the collection The Last Plain to Heaven (2015). It was anthologized in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Eighth Annual Collection (2011), edited by Garnder Dozois

Read the fulll story for free at Tor.com.

This Sturgeon Award nominated short story originally appeared in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, #244, February 2018. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year: Volume Thirteen (2019), edited by Jonathan Strahan, and The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2019, edited by Rich Horton.

Read the full story for free at Beneath Ceaseless Skies.

This short story originally appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction, July 1995, and was reprinted in Lightspeed, February 2017. It can also be found in the anthology The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirteenth Annual Collection (1996), edited by Gardner Dozois. It is included in Voyages by Starlight (1996).

Read the full story for free at Lightspeed.

In a dystopian future brought about by global warming, seventeen-year-old Nat and her hacker brother, Sam, have come by ship to the Big Island of Hawaii for their parents' Final Week. The few Americans who still live well also live long--so long that older adults bow out not by natural means but by buying death contracts from the corporates who now run the disintegrating society, keeping the people happy through a constant diet of "pharma."

Nat's family is spending their pharma-guided last week at a luxury resort complex called the Twilight Island Acropolis. Deeply conflicted about her parents' decision, Nat spends her time keeping a record of everything her family does in the company-supplied diary that came in the hotel's care package. While Nat attempts to come to terms with her impending parentless future, Sam begins to discover cracks in the corporates' agenda--and eventually rebels against the company his parents have hired to handle their last days. Now Nat will have to choose a side, in this moving and suspenseful novel by a National Book Award-nominated author.

Winner of the Paterson Prize for Books for Young People

Who will save us from the lobsters from outer space?

It is New York City, 1953. Young pulp-fiction writer Kurt Jastrow's world is thrown into disarray when two extraterrestrial lobster-like creatures arrive at the NBC studios. Though rabid fans of Kurt's "scientific" alter-ego, loveable scientist Uncle Wonder, they also judge that the audience of a religious TV program is "a hive of irrationalist vermin." To Jastrow's horror, the crustaceans scheme to vaporize two million viewers when the next show goes on the air.

Now Jastrow and his co-conspirators have a mere forty hours to produce a script so explicitly rational and yet utterly absurd that it will somehow deter the aliens from their diabolical scheme...

Starships return, in the distant future, to find Earth incredibly changed; telepathic Earth children journey to the City to discover the secret of this strange new society.

The Millennial War left a sullen void where civilization once stood. But then the whales began their song -- a mysterious song that resounded throughout the polluted seas and told an ancient heartbreaking tale that moved the survivors to revive and honored ritual...

The Last Starship From Earth is a dystopian novel set in 1968 and 1969, but not the 1968 and 1969 that I remember, or lived through. In the world of this story, Jesus did not die on the cross, but was killed leading an assault on Rome. He was the Messiah that people expected. The government of John Boyd's world is a global government run by Christians along "scientific" lines, where psychologists and sociologists in conjunction with the Church and an AI Pope rule the world. People marry and mate because of their genes, sort of like the film Gattaca, and the hero of our story is Haldane IV, M-5, 138270, 3/10/46, a math student of great promise, being the fourth in line of great mathematicians. Unfortunately Haldane gets the hots for Helix, a mere poet. By law and social custom Haldane is expected to have nothing to do with her, but as you'd expect he falls in love with her.

Let the Spacemen Beware!

The inhabitants of Gwydion are a peaceful race with no weapons let alone concept of hatred or war. Every item on the planet has a mythological meaning to them. All except for one of the plants that grows nearly everywhere. The two main characters have arrived from different planets. One is from a libertarian culture while the other is from a capitalistic culture. They both fall in love with the same woman and are determined to find out why the Gwydions act the way they do.

The Wizard of Starship Poseidon

CONSPIRACY OF GENIUS

His height barely reached five feet, his spindly legs supported a bulging chest, and his eyes protruded grotesquely from a gnome-like head - but within that absurd-looking man lay the mind of a genius.

It was a genius that had carried mankind deep into the secrets of creation and was now on the verge of producing living organisms from test tubes filled with inert chemicals. The world, however, ridiculed the theories of Professor Cheslin Randolph and the government refused to advance the millions needed for the final series of experiments.

But Professor Randolph was determined to get the money - even if it meant turning his powerful brain to robbing a spaceship in mid-flight, using trained viruses as his accomplices.

The subject matter of this collection is varied, but displays Jones' stance as a practicing SF writer and a feminist; the writing is characterized by both an incisive engagement with the texts and a refusal to dress that engagement in jargon. This very readable book provides insight into the work of one of the UK's most interesting writers and presents strong - sometimes even subversive - views of a range of modern SF and fantasy.

Contents:

• vii - Foreword (Deconstructing the Starships) - essay
• 3 - Introduction (Deconstructing the Starships) - (1988) - essay
• 9 - Getting Rid of the Brand Names - (1987) - essay
• 22 - The Lady and the Scientists - (1990) - essay
• 35 - Dreamer: An Exercise in Extrapolation 1989-2019 - (unknown) - essay
• 60 - My Crazy Uncles: C. S. Lewis and Tolkien as Writers for Children - (1995) - essay
• 77 - Fools: The Neuroscience of Cyberspace - (1997) - essay
• 91 - Trouble (Living in the Machine) - (1994) - essay
• 99 - Sex: The Brains of Female Hyena Twins - (1994) - essay
• 108 - Aliens in the Fourth Dimension - (1996) - essay
• 123 - Review: In the Chinks of the World Machine by Sarah LeFanu - (1988) - review
• 131 - Consider Her Ways: The Fiction of C. J. Cherryh - (unknown) - essay
• 141 - Review: Alien Sex by Ellen Datlow - (1990) - review
• 146 - Review: Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson - (1992) - review
• 153 - Review: Glory Season by David Brin - (1993) - review
• 156 - Review: Virtual Light by William Gibson - review
• 161 - Review: A Million Open Doors by John Barnes - review
• 168 - Review: Winterlong by Elizabeth Hand - review
• 178 - Review: Plague of Angels by Sheri S. Tepper - review
• 184 - Review: The Furies by Suzy McKee Charnas - (1994) - review
• 192 - Review: Alien Influences by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - review
• 199 - No Man's Land: Feminised Landscapes in the Utopian Fiction of Ursula Le Guin - (1996) - essay
• 209 - Notes (Deconstructing the Starships) - essay

The starship Theodore Roosevelt is fighting on the far outskirts of a galactic war, its crew made up of retreads and raw recruits. A new first officer reports, Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding his orders (but getting results). He's been banished to the Teddy R. for his actions, but once there he again ignores his orders....

This is the first of five novels about the starship Theodore Roosevelt. The next four will be, in order, Pirate, Mercenary, Rebel, and Flagship.

The date is 1967 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now. The Republic, created by the human race but not yet dominated by it, is in the midst of an all-out war with the Teroni Federation. After his latest exploit saved millions of lives but embarrassed his superiors, Captain Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding orders but getting results, found himself the victim of the media feeding frenzy, a political scapegoat despite years of dedicated military service. Faced with a court martial, he was rescued by the loyal crew of his ship, the Theodore Roosevelt. Now branded mutineers, the crew of the Teddy R. has quit the Republic, never to return.

Seeking to find a new life for themselves, Wilson Cole and comrades remake the Teddy R. as a pirate ship and set sail for the lawless Inner Frontier. Here, powerful warlords, cut-throat pirates, and struggling colonies compete for survival in a game where you rarely get a second chance to learn the rules.

But military discipline is poor preparation for a life of pillaging and plundering, and Cole's principles naturally limit his targets. Seeking an education on the nature of piracy, Cole hunts more knowledgeable players. Enter the beautiful but deadly Valkyrie, Val for short, and the enigmatic alien fence known as David Copperfield. But hanging over everything is the fearsome alien pirate -- the Hammerhead Shark.

With Starship: Pirate, five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick continues the story begun in his very first military SF. Will the galaxy ever be the same?

The date is 1968 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now. The Republic, created by the human race but not yet dominated by it, is in the midst of an all-out war with the Teroni Federation. Captain Wilson Cole, a man with a reputation for exceeding orders but getting results, found himself the victim of a media feeding frenzy, a political scapegoat despite years of dedicated military service. Faced with a court martial, he was rescued by the loyal crew of his ship, the Theodore Roosevelt. Branded mutineers, the Teddy R. has quit the Republic, never to return.

Seeking to find a new life, Wilson Cole first remade the Teddy R. as a pirate ship plying the spaceways of the lawless Inner Frontier. But military discipline and honor were a poor match for a life of pillaging and plundering, and Cole's principles naturally limited his targets. Taking on a new role, the Teddy R. becomes a mercenary ship, hiring out to the highest bidder. Whether it's evacuating a hospital before war can reach it, freeing a client from an alien prison, or stopping a criminal cartel from extorting money from a terrified planet, the crew of the Teddy R. proves equal to the task. Along the way they form a partnership with the once human Platinum Duke, team up with a former enemy, and make the unique Singapore Station their headquarters.

But the life of a mercenary is not always predictable, and eventually circumstance pits Cole and the Teddy R. against his right-hand woman, the former Pirate Queen known as the Valkyrie. Soon the fragile trust that has grown between these two legends is put to the test as they find themselves on opposite sides of a job.

The date is 1968 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now. The Republic, dominated by the human race, is in the midst of an all-out war with the Teroni Federation.

Almost a year has passed since the events of Starship: Mercenary. Captain Wilson Cole now commands a fleet of almost fifty ships, and he has become the single greatest military force on the Inner Frontier.

With one exception. The Republic still comes and goes as it pleases, taking what it wants, conscripting men, and extorting taxes, even though the Frontier worlds receive nothing in exchange. And, of course, the government still wants Wilson Cole and the starship Theodore Roosevelt. He has no interest in confronting such an overwhelming force, and constantly steers clear of them.

Then an incident occurs that changes everything, and Cole declares war on the Republic. Outnumbered and always outgunned, his fleet is no match for the Republic's millions of military vessels, even after he forges alliances with the warlords he previously hunted down.

It's a hopeless cause... but that's just what Wilson Cole and the Teddy R. are best at.

The date is 1970 of the Galactic Era, almost three thousand years from now, and the Republic, created by the human race but not yet dominated by it, finds itself in an all-out war against the Teroni Federation, an alliance of races that resent Man's growing military and economic power.

The rebel starship, the Theodore Roosevelt, under the command of Wilson Cole, is preparing to lead Cole's ragtag armada into the Republic, even though he is outnumbered thousands to one. Cole is convinced that the government has become an arrogant and unfeeling political entity and must be overthrown.

The trick is to avoid armed conflict with the vast array of ships, numbering in the millions, in the Republic's Navy. For a time Cole's forces strike from cover and race off to safety, but he soon sees that is no way to conquer the mightiest political and military machine in the history of the galaxy. He realizes that he must reach Deluros VIII, the headquarters world of the Republic (and of the race of Man), in order to have any effect on the government at all—but Deluros VIII is the best-protected world in the Republic.

But a new threat looms on the horizon. Cole, the Valkyrie, David Copperfield, Sharon Blacksmith, Jacovic, and the rest of the crew of the Teddy R face their greatest challenge yet, and the outcome will determine the fate of the entire galaxy.

Firstname Lastname is a no one with nowhere to go. With a name that is the result of an unfortunate clerical error and the sad reality that she is one of the only humans on an alien space station, things aren't looking too great. Her only entertainment is streaming rock soap operas with her sentient-stone roommate, her source of food is the occasional ability to digest alien cuisine, and her only income is living off the kindness (read: ignorance of all her best cons) of strangers.

That is, until First steals a luxury car belonging to one of the station's "legitimate" businessment. Now she finds herself blackmailed into being a part of a crew of repomen (they are definitely not pirates) just to keep from being arrested.

So she's traveling the galaxy, "recovering" ships and making an actual wage. What could go wrong?

In one of Robert A. Heinlein's most controversial bestsellers, a recruit of the future goes through the toughest boot camp in the Universe - and into battle with the Terran Mobile Infantry against mankind's most alarming enemy.

It is told through the eyes of Starship Trooper Johnny Rico, from his idealistic enlistment in the infantry of the future, through his rigorous training to the command of his own platoon of infantrymen. His destiny is a galactic war of unlimited violence and destruction, in which he and his fellow troopers scour the metal-strewn emptiness of space to hunt down a terrifying enemy - an insect life form which threatens the very future of mankind.

Geordi LaForge has been given the chance of his lifetime! He's been chosen to join the training vessel Benjamin Franklin as assistant engineer, an opportunity rarely given to plebes. Geordi is determined to live up to Commander Sanchez's expectations. Their mission is to chart a neglected sector of the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter.

That night, Sanchez calls up s history of the old starship and Ben's first commander, the heroic Ike Ikushima, who died saving his crew from disaster. The next night Geordi sees Ikushima's ghost, arm raised, pointing directly at him! When he tells Sanchez, everyone begins to doubt Geordi's reliability... until the ghost reappears, pointing a warning finger at them all! What does it mean? Is the ship haunted? Is it an alien invasion? The cadets are about to make history themselves-- if they escape with their lives!

En route to an important diplomatic reception the U.S.S. Enterprise suddenly is set upon by a Klingon warship. The unprovoked assault, Kirk discovers, is in response to what the Klingon ship's captain claims are recent Federation attacks on several Klingon vessels which have disappeared.

Managing to secure a truce, Captain Kirk reaches the reception only to find out it is not just Klingon ships that are disappearing, but Federation vessels, Romulan Birds of Prey, and ships from almost every known race are vanishing without a trace.

Now, Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship Enterprise must determine the fate of the missing ships before the entire known galaxy is drawn into a deadly conflict.

When a freindly, alien people called the Rey make contact with the Federation, they are thrilled to learn the galaxy has a large number of intelligent races. To bring the myriad cultures to their world, the Rey host a celebration -- inviting spacefaring peoples to send representative ships to compete against one another and The Great Starship Race is born.

As the Federation's flagship, the U.S.S. Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, is sent to compete. But the event takes a dark turn when a Romulan warship arrives and demands to join the race. Soon, Kirk and the Romulan commander are engaged in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and, for Kirk and his crew, the race becomes a struggle for survival. Faced with treachery at every turn. Kirk must protect his ship from relentless attack and prevent the annihilation of an entire world.

On the backwater colony world of Chalcedony, Delta Pavonis, all is not what it seems... All David Conway wants after the death of his daughter and the break-up of his marriage is a quiet life away from Earth and when he comes to Chalcedony he thinks he s found that. What he does find is a group of people whose friendship will change his life forever, as well as a haunted starship, extraterrestrials with an uncanny ability to read future events, and a conflict between alien races that has lasted for millennia... and is about to begin all over again.

In this wonderful series, Eric Brown gives us aliens, fabulous works of art, starships and teleportation... plus some of the most delightful characters ever to grace the printed page.

Table of Contents:

• Starship Summer - (2007) - novella
• Starship Fall - (2009) - novella
• Starship Winter - (2012) - novella
• Starship Spring - (2012) - novella

David Conway leaves Earth and settles on the backwater planet of Chalcedony, Delta Pavonis IV, in search of a quiet life away from the haunting reminders of his past. Living aboard a derelict spaceship in the quiet coastal community of Magenta Bay, he meets artist Matt Sommers, beachcomber Maddie Chamberlain, and ex-starship pilot Hawksworth. Things seem about as perfect as he could hope... until he discovers that his ship is haunted by an alien spectre. What follows will change Conway and his friends and the future of humankind's destiny in space forever.

David Conway leads a quiet life in picturesque Magenta Bay on the colony world of Chalcedony. Nothing much has happened for five years, but all that is about to change. First he meets the mysterious holo star Carlotta Chakravorti-Luna, who regrets the lost loves of her past and dreams of learning what the future might hold. Then Conway's alien friend Kee heads inland to take part in an Ashentay ritual with potentially fatal consequences. What follows is a convoluted and poignant tragedy which entangles Conway and his friends.

In Starship Fall, Eric Brown has crafted a powerful, moving novella about love, friendship, and the consequences of learning one's destiny.

That winter David Conway was enjoying a quiet life with his friends, not especially looking for love, but finding it anyway. The artist Matt Sommers was due to stage an exhibition of Epiphany Stones from Acrab IV, a show which attracted the attention of one Darius Dortmund, the famous empathy. Dortmund could see into the minds of men 'some said into their very souls' and when he met David and his friends, and looked into their minds, what he found there would lead to murder...

Starship Winter, the third volume in the Starship Seasons sequence, continues the quiet adventures of Conway and his friends on the backwater colony world of Addenbrooke, Delta Pavonis IV.

'That year, a little over six years since meeting Hannah van Harben, life for me was just about as good as it could get.' David Conway is happily married with a young daughter, and wants for nothing. He has an idyllic life on the colony world of Chalcedony, with friends Matt and Maddie, Hawk and Kee - but things are about to get interesting when the friends holiday at Tamara Falls on the planet's equatorial plateau. Buried far beneath the Falls is a dormant alien army - the Skeath, ancient enemies of the Yall: an army which is threatening to come to life, if the evil Dr Petronious gets his way...

Ten years after events depicted in Starship Spring, David Conway is enjoying life on the idyllic world of Chalcedony, Delta Pavonis V. Then he receives a communique from his ex-wife who reveals that she is undergoing a remarkable medical process. Not only that, but she is coming to Chalcedony and wishes to meet him. What follows will force Conway to look back at the tragic events of his past and face the mendacity of those seeking to gain from his fame as an Opener of the Way. Starship Coda is the moving epilogue to the successful Starship series.

By the 26th century, humanity had begun its expansion to the stars, and the Interstellar Dominion Electorates reigned over a unified Terra -- but New York was still New York, Broadway was still Broadway, and live theater was bigger and better than ever.

The excited theater pioneers of the newly formed Star Company were dedicated to taking their act on the road -- and out to the stars. They were far too busy with tryouts to pay any attention to current events and the constant harangues of the reactionary LORDS party on the public wallscreens.

Then the Lords party turned its attack on theater and its "timeless repertory of immorality." Suddenly the Star Company was off on a madcap race to finish its preparations, buy a ship and hire a pilot, and lift off Terra before it was grounded forever... or worse!

The Star Company, a renegade theatre troupe, was run off of Earth, so they set their sites on New Venus. The name sounded good, but life on the planet was thoroughly regulated by Amalgamated Petroleum--where even the air and water came at a high cost. Enter the Star Company, with its incendiary mix of veteran troupers, innocent ingenues, and volatile prima donnas. When Amalgamated approved a production of MACBETH, little did anybody imagine how much trouble those three witches would stir up!

The fledgling Star Company lands on the prosperous colony planet of Citadel only to discover that the world they have selected for their latest performance is a Puritan world where even the sight of female limbs is considered shocking and theater is forbidden!

THE WARS ARE OVER...

The conflicts of Planet Earth are forgotten now. Even The Solar System War with its Cold Victory is barely a memory. In this the third and final volume of The Psychotechnic League, the scale is immeasurably greater in Sace, in Time... and in violence.

Table of Contents:

• 9 - Foreword (Starship) - essay by Sandra Miesel
• 12 - Gypsy - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - short story
• 36 - Star Ship - [Psychotechnic League] - (1950) - novelette
• 83 - Virgin Planet - [Psychotechnic League] - (1957) - novella
• 183 - Teucan - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novelette
• 211 - The Pirate - [Psychotechnic League] - (1968) - novelette
• 253 - The Chapter Ends - [Psychotechnic League] - (1954) - novelette
• 283 - A Chronology of the Psychotechnic Series - essay by Sandra Miesel

The ship was to be seven miles long, a third of a mile in diameter and have a wing-spread of three and a half miles. It would take two and a half centuries to construct. Its announced purpose: to carry humanity away from its ruined world, from the world that had become a perpetual purgatory.

To build this vast ship would require the undivided activity of an entire nation and would mean carrying out a ruthless program of war and conquest, of annihilation and reconstruction, and of education and rediscovery.

But was this starship really what it was claimed to be? Or was there a greater secret behind its incredible cost - a secret so strange that no man dared reveal it?