Search Worlds Without End

Hugo- and Nebula-nominated Novelette

The kingdom in the Valley has long sheltered under the protection of its Jewels and Lapidaries, the people bound to singing gemstones with the power to reshape hills, move rivers, and warp minds. That power has kept the peace and tranquility, and the kingdom has flourished.

Jewel Lin and her Lapidary Sima may be the last to enjoy that peace.

The Jeweled Court has been betrayed. As screaming raiders sweep down from the mountains, and Lapidary servants shatter under the pressure, the last princess of the Valley will have to summon up a strength she's never known. If she can assume her royal dignity, and if Sima can master the most dangerous gemstone in the land, they may be able to survive.

Jewels and their lapidaries and have all but passed into myth.

Jorit, broke and branded a thief, just wants to escape the Far Reaches for something better. Ania, a rumpled librarian, is trying to protect her books from the Pressmen, who value knowledge but none of the humanity that generates it.

When they stumble upon a mysterious clock powered by an ancient jewel, they may discover secrets in the past that will change the future forever.

It's been centuries since the Jeweled Valley and its magical gems were destroyed. In the republics that rose from its ashes, scientists craft synthetic jewels to heat homes, power gadgetry, and wage war.

Dr. Devina Brunai is one of these scientists. She also is the only person who believes true gems still exist. The recent unearthing of the Palace of Gems gives her the perfect opportunity to find them and prove her naysayers wrong.

Her chance is snatched away at the last moment when her mentor steals her research and wins the trip for himself. Soon, his messages from the field transform into bizarre ramblings about a book, a Prince, and an enemy borne of the dark. Now Dev must enter the Valley, find her mentor, and save her research before they, like gems, become relics of a time long forgotten.

Dazzling to behold, Gemworld is one of the wonders of the Federation: an artificial world composed entirely of crystal, its atmosphere held in place by a sophisticated network of force fields. Home to a half dozen different sentient races, this singular world is a low-gravity playpen of mammoth spires, endless fractal staircases, gemstone arcs, and dazzling prisms, oil carefully nurtured by the planet's many inhabitants -- until now.

Lieutenant Melora Pozlor, who previously served on Deep Space Nine, is currently stationed aboard the Starship Enterprise where an urgent telepathic summons alerts her to the danger threatening her homeworld.

The crystals that once sheltered her people, and several other alien species, are now growing at a vastly accelerated and uncontrollable rate, wreaking havoc throughout the planet. Captain Picard orders the Enterprise on a rescue mission to Gemworld, but they arrive to find a world in chaos -- and an unexpected menace that traps the crew of the Enterprise along with the fragile civilization they hoped to save!

Sparkling like a three-dimensional snowflake in the depths of space, Gernworld once was one of the Federation's greatest marvels. Six different alien races coexisted peacefully on an artificial world composed entirely of crystal -- until the very substance of Gemworld began to multiply out of control, tearing the world apart. Now the entire planet -- and the Starship Enterprise as well-faces total destruction.

The only way to stop the disaster is to turn off the vast network of force fields holding Gemworld's atmosphere in place, but to do so will require the cooperation of each of the planet's half dozen alien civilizations, one of which sabotaged Gemworld in the first place. With time running out, Captain Picard and his crew, including a lovestruck Lieutenant Barclay, must embark on a hazardous trek across the dying planet to find and unite the chief engineers from many strange and exotic races -- while watching out for a mass murderer determined to destroy a world!