This book was a finalist for the Colorado Book Award for Science Fiction/Fantasy.
When the Lethe closed in on the Nether wormhole, Cammie was part of the “last shift” awake before the other ten crewmembers would be revived from hibernation. She herself had been out of the cryopod for six months, preparing, taking telescopic measurements, growing anxious . . . and a little bored.
Ever since the mission had departed from the NOOR asteroid hub five years earlier, she’d been filled with anticipation, never doubting that this was her life’s work. The scientific breakthroughs they would gain from the mysterious wormhole made her heart and mind glow, and she could barely focus on anything else. None of the other six awake crewmembers understood her passion, but she counted down the days until Zachary Tendari emerged from hibernation.
Alone and self-absorbed, she walked down the big ship’s corridors toward the observation bridge. Her real work wouldn’t begin until they arrived at the wormhole in a few weeks, but she liked to gaze out at the starry blackness, even if the bridge wasn’t a place to find solitude.
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When she wanted to be alone, she’d seal herself in her quarters, as some of the other crew did. During her alternating shifts out of the cryopod, Cammie had made her best effort to forge friendly relationships on the Lethe, though it was out of her comfort zone. Soon enough the ship would be much more crowded with all seventeen members awake, and they had to get along with one another.
The voyage up to the Kuiper Belt took five years, and the team was scheduled to remain at the wormhole for six months of extensive study, and then it would be another five years back down to the inner solar system. Cammie didn’t regret such a major investment of time; she couldn’t think of anything she would rather do with her life.
When the mission crew had gone through their briefings and exercises back at the NOOR asteroid hub, they were warned that they’d be away from family, friends, and most other people for more than a decade. Cammie wasn’t intimidated by the idea. She didn’t like crowds, her family was gone, and she liked being by herself, so long as she had real research to do.
This mission was what she had been born to do. She wanted more than just theories and models, more than wire-frame diagrams in simulations, but an actual wormhole.
Nether.
Reaching the bridge, she braced herself before she entered. The extensive viewing windows showed the black velvet panorama—so vast, so mysterious. But Benedict Noor and his acting commander, Karla Arkourian, were both on duty. She would not have the bridge to herself.
In the center of the room, Noor lounged in the captain’s chair as if it were a throne. He was a lanky man with a bald head that gleamed in the artificial lights. Years ago, when his hair had begun to fall out from experimental life-extension treatments, Noor had simply shaved his head.
“Nether Station”
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His face was as well known as any world leader’s. He’d been the subject of excoriating media coverage, countless profiles, scandals, and technological triumphs. He did not care what other people said about him. When forming his company, he used just his own name in all caps, NOOR—with the two O’s linked, like an infinity symbol. Initially, Cammie thought he was arrogant, but over the Lethe’s long voyage, she realized he was more complicated than that.
Though she entered the bridge quietly, Noor turned to give her a disarming yet wily smile. “Ah, Dr. Skoura—come to build anticipation for the wormhole? Or just in search of two other cardplayers?” He turned to the other officer on the bridge, who was busy studying readings at her command station. “What do you say, Karla?”
Karla Arkourian was a former Space Force captain and fighter pilot in the wars before she’d joined the private sector and worked her way up at NOOR. She was in her sixties, presumably the tail end of an aerospace career. She was lean to the point of being gaunt, with steel-gray hair in a short, serviceable cut. Cammie liked her.
Arkourian barely looked up from her screens in response to Noor’s comment. “No time for games. I have a vital mission systems profile to run this afternoon.”
The older woman was effectively in command of the mission, making any necessary snap decisions, but Benedict Noor insisted on being the “captain,” since he had paid for the whole expedition. Arkourian didn’t care a whit for administrative titles, because everyone knew who was in charge.
Bored, Noor tapped his fingers on the arm of the captain’s chair. “Come now, Karla. Lethe is decelerating on schedule. Everything is on autopilot and constantly monitored, and it’ll be two weeks before we’re close enough to the wormhole to worry about course corrections.” He raised his eyebrows. “What duties do you have that could possibly be more urgent than a card game?”
Arkourian gave him a hard expression. “All of them.”
Cammie hoped the trillionaire wasn’t serious about playing cards. Noor didn’t try to intimidate her on purpose, but he wasn’t overly warm either. Now she flushed with embarrassment. “I just came up to think. I get good ideas when I stare out at the stars. Sorry to interrupt. Sometimes it . . . doesn’t seem real to me.”
During Lethe’s long voyage, only a small crew of five remained awake at any one time to do maintenance and research work, while the other ten slept in cryopods until they were revived for their own shifts—six months awake, one year down—plus an alternating two-person command crew that was out of phase with the other sleepers.
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Four other crew were awake now during the final approach. Glinda Roybal was a loud and exuberant lead engineer, without personal boundaries. Pedro Ashe was the young secondary engineer; Warren Drake would be the pilot for the probes and recon ships; and quiet Kem Stelland served as the ship’s doctor, medical researcher, and greenhouse monitor.
For Cammie, though, the schedule meant that Zach Tendari was in hibernation most of the time she was awake, and vice versa. She wished they could brainstorm and fine-tune their theories as they grew closer to the destination. Soon enough, during final approach, the entire crew would be revived, ready to get to work.
Making no further conversation, Cammie stood by the wide observation window. Looking out at the emptiness, she felt dizzy, tipped down into an infinite hole with stars in every direction. Out there, she could fall up, or down, or in any direction forever.
The Kuiper Belt was a diffuse veil of rocks and ice leftover from the formation of the solar system, untouched and unseen, and the sun was no more than a bright star. The Lethe was farther from home than any humans had ever ventured.
“You won’t be able to see the wormhole yet, no matter how hard you look,” Noor said. “You do have telescopes and the quantum-imaging chips in the observatory chamber.”
With his clout and wealth, Noor could lecture whenever he liked, and people would politely listen. She didn’t let the boss-splaining annoy her. “I know, sir. I’ve been using them, but there’s nothing to see yet.”
“Not yet, but soon. On the Lethe, we’ll be among the greatest scientific explorers in history,” Noor continued, starting to sound grandiose. “Like Darwin on the Beagle. And I am its captain.”
“Nobody remembers the captain of the Beagle, Benedict,” Arkourian said.
“Robert FitzRoy. He was also the second governor of New Zealand—one of my explorer heroes,” Noor quipped, and then kept talking. “I’m convinced the Nether wormhole is a direct conduit to the Alpha Centauri system, and that means I’ll be able to set up an outpost here and another one at the other end. Think about the possibilities, Dr. Skoura—or Cammie? Can I call you Cammie?”
He had asked her the question several times already, and she’d given him noncommittal responses, which he either forgot or didn’t consider satisfactory.
“I . . . I don’t have a preference,” she said.
During the pre-mission briefings, Dr. Tendari had tried to coach her through her difficulties with personal interactions, and Cammie had taught herself to get along with her fellow crewmembers. While she understood complex astrophysical models, she wasn’t comfortable with friendships. Back on Earth, she could function on the surface of society, but wasn’t very good at it, mystified by how people just knew what others were thinking, what they were implying. They understood when to tease and when to be serious. Though she tested as a true genius, that was all a mystery to her.
Noor didn’t even notice she wasn’t paying attention. “What I envision, Cammie”—apparently, he decided to use her first name—“is that this isn’t just a wormhole tunnel to one star. What if there’s an entire network, like a subway system underneath the universe? Passages to countless star systems across the Galaxy?”
Cammie turned from the windowport to look at him, though he was saying things she already knew. “Theoretical models allow for that, sir, but we simply won’t have enough data until we reach the Nether wormhole.” Cammie hesitated, out of her depth. “Dr. Tendari would be a better person to ask. Once he’s revived from the cryopod, the two of us will start testing our theories.”
Noor nodded. “I understand. We start waking the rest of the crew in three days, and I’ll make sure Dr. Tendari is the first one out of the cryopods.” He shifted in the captain’s chair. “Oh well, if nobody wants to play cards, I’ll go see Warren in the hangar bay. He’s probably caressing his ships.”
Arkourian had never shifted her attention from her station. When Noor departed, Cammie gladly went back to staring out at the stars.
Kevin J. Anderson is the bestselling author of more than 190 books, with 24 million copies in print worldwide. He is best known for his work in the Star Wars and Dune universes; he is the co-producer of the recent film “Dune: Part Two” and the HBO TV series “Dune: Prophecy,” which is based on one of his novels with Brian Herbert. Kevin has lived in Colorado for 28 years, has completed the Colorado Trail and climbed all the 14ers, and he is the director of the graduate program in Publishing for Western Colorado University. He lives in Monument.
