Six-time Hugo Award winner Ben Bova chronicles the saga of humankind's expansion beyond the solar system in Death Wave In the precursor to the Star Quest Trilogy, New Earth , Jordan Kell led the first human mission beyond the solar system. They discovered the ruins of an ancient alien civilization. But one alien AI survived, and it revealed to Jordan Kell that an explosion in the black hole at the heart of the Milky Way galaxy has created a wave of deadly radiation, expanding out from the core toward Earth. Unless the human race acts to save itself, all life on Earth will be wiped out. When Kell and his team return to Earth, many years after their departure, they find that their world has changed almost beyond recognition. Not only has a second wave of greenhouse flooding caused sea levels to rise, but society has been changed by the consequences of the climate shift. Few people want to face Jordan Kell's news. He must convince Earth's new rulers that the human race is in danger of extinction unless it acts to forestall the death wave coming from the galaxy's heart. The Star Quest Trilogy #1 Death Wave #2 Apes and Angels BEN BOVA is the author of more than a hundred works of science fact and fiction, including Able One , Leviathans of Jupiter and the Grand Tour novels, including Titan , winner of John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, and in 2008 he won the Robert A. Heinlein Award "for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature." He is President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, and a former editor of Analog and former fiction editor of Omni . As an editor, he won science fiction's Hugo Award six times. Dr. Bova's writings have predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), electronic book publishing, and much more. He lives in Florida. Death Wave By Ben Bova Tom Doherty Associates Copyright © 2015 Ben Bova All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7653-7950-4 Contents Title Page, Copyright Notice, Dedication, Epigraph, Rio Grande Gorge, Jordan Kell, Barcelona, Albuquerque, Taos, New Mexico, World Council Headquarters, The Death Wave, First Things First, San Francisco, Plans, Decision, Action, Tarragona Air Force Base, Assessment, Mountain View, Officers' Club, Barcelona, New York City, Nashville, Tarragona Air Force Base, World Council Headquarters, Boston, Barcelona, Communications Center, World Council Headquarters, Grand Hotel, North Dakota, Grand Hotel, Communications Complex, Janos Rudaki, Barcelona, El Prat Airport, Treasure Island, Walter James Edgerton, Chicago, Communications Complex, Chicago, Barcelona, Gilda Nordquist, Chicago, North Dakota, KTBR, Nordquist and Stavenger, Griffin and Otero, Albuquerque, Barcelona, Douglas Stavenger, History Lesson, Escape, The Hub, Aditi, Preparations, Evidence, Barcelona, San Francisco, Boston, Beacon Hill, Otero Studio Six, Barcelona, Boston, Otero Studio Six, Dead Worlds, Responsibility, Habitat Gandhi, Mitchell Thornberry, Concord, Massachusetts, Invitations, News Conference, Assassination, Preparations, Intelligence, Counterintelligence, Habitat Gandhi, Plans of Attack, Deployments, Action, Escape, Stalemate, Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make ..., ... Nor Iron Bars a Cage, Broadcast, Habitat Gandhi, Love Your Enemies, The Trial, Babysitting, London, Cornwall, Moscow, Seeds of Doubt (1), Seeds of Doubt (2), Rise and Strike, Christmas Presents, Confrontation, Election Day, Epilogue: Six Years Later, About the Author, Tor Books by Ben Bova, Copyright, CHAPTER 1 RIO GRANDE GORGE It was a bright, hot morning, a typical New Mexico high desert summer day with a stiff breeze blowing in from the mountains. But there was trouble in the air. Acting Sergeant Hamilton Cree, New Mexico Highway Patrol, sat in his air-conditioned cruiser and watched the traffic piling up on U.S. 67. As ordered by the World Council security team, he had swung his cruiser to block the lane that entered the bridge over the Rio Grande Gorge and turned on his BRIDGE TEMPORARILY CLOSED sign. The words hung in midair over the roof of his cruiser, big enough to see twenty car lengths down the road. Another cruiser was blocking access on the other side of the bridge. Cree was nearing the age of twenty-three, the year in which his required public service would be ended and he could leave the Highway Patrol with a reasonably healthy pension. The big question in his mind was whether he should be content to live off the pension or try to find a job that brought in more income. If he did get a job, he knew, his pension would be cut off; if he ever lost the job, he'd be up the creek. It was illegal to get married while