Search Worlds Without End

Keith Stoner, ex-astronaut turned physicist, knows the signal that his research station is receiving from space is not random. Whatever it is, it’s real.

And it’s headed straight for Earth.

He’ll do anything to be the first man to go out to confrint this enigma. Even lose the only woman he’s ever really loved.

And maybe start a world war.

Eighteen years ago, astronaut Keith Stoner had been the American member of a joint U.S.–Soviet mission to capture an alien ship that had entered the solar system. It was the greatest adventure in the history of Earth-but disaster struck when a bomb placed on the Soviet craft forced its recall. Stoner refused to return to Earth, staying behind in the strange ship alone where he fell into suspended animation.

Jo Camerata, the ambitious young student who fell in love with Stoner, is now head of Vanguard Industries. Jo’s dogged determination has forced the recovery of the alien ship, and now her company is in control of the vast new technology-and in control of Keith Stoner. What Camerata doesn’t know, however, is that when Stoner wakes, someone else awakens, too. The alien presence in Stoner’s mind that has kept him alive all these years is now free, and intends to explore the world.

And it will let nothing stand in its way.

Keith Stoner, the only man successfully revived from cryogenic storage, bears within him an alien gift that will change the hearts and minds of the world's most powerful rulers unless a group of influential and ruthless men finds him first. Bova's conclusion to his Voyagers' trilogy (Voyagers, LJ 8/81; Voyagers II, LJ 2/15/86) offers fast-paced action for fans of hard-core sf adventure. For large sf collections.

In the 1980s, an alien starship visited Earth. While investigating what appeared to be a sarcophagus bearing the preserved body of its builder, astronaut Keith Stoner was trapped and cryogenically frozen. After his body was eventually returned to Earth and revived, Stoner discovered that he had acquired alien powers. Using these new powers, he built a new starship and left Earth.

Now, after more than a century of exploring the stars, Keith Stoner returns to find that the world he has come back to does not match the one he left. The planet is suffering the consequences of disastrous greenhouse flooding. Most nations have been taken over by ultraconservative religion-based governments, such as the New Morality in the United States. With population ballooning and resources running out, Earth is heading for nuclear war.

Stoner, the star voyager, wants to save Earth’s people. But first he must save himself from the frightened and ambitious zealots who want to destroy this stranger—and the terrifying message he brings from the stars.