Robert Wilson: Vortex

The people Officer Bose introduced me to have been real kind. They found me this job, and a place for Ariel and me to live. They are good people, even if what they do is outside of the law. They are not criminals exactly. They just think they can invent a better way of living.

Maybe they will succeed at their work. If they do then maybe the world won’t turn barren and poisonous, like in the dreams I wrote down. I hope that is the case.

I don’t know, of course. But you can trust these people, Dr. Cole.

And I know you trust Officer Bose. He helped me when he didn’t have to. He’s a good man, I believe.

I thank him, and I thank you for the same reason.

Well, that is all I have to say. I have to go to work pretty soon.

Don’t expect to hear from me again.

Ariel sends her kind regards, and asks me to tell you that Houston is too damn hot.

Orrin Mather

Laramie, Wyoming

This book couldn’t have been written without the help and patience of friends and family members too numerous to mention; needless to say, I thank them all. Thanks also to Glenn Harper, who generously answered a technical question (about the relative size of a human being vis-à-vis the Planck length and the limits of the observable universe)—the answer didn’t make it into the final text of Vortex, at least not explicitly, but it helped clarify my thinking about the nature of “the Hypotheticals” and their intervention in human history. On the subject of oceanic eutrophication and the fate of the Earth, I drew on Under a Green Sky and The Medea Hypothesis, by the reliably pessimistic Peter Ward, and I commend both books to the attention of curious readers.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

VORTEX

Copyright © 2011 by Robert Charles Wilson

All rights reserved.

Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

A Tor ®eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor ®is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wilson, Robert Charles, 1953-

Vortex / Robert Charles Wilson. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”

ISBN 978-0-7653-2342-2

I. Title.

PR9199.3.W4987V67 2011

813'.54—dc22

2011011559

First Edition: July 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-6073-1

First Tor eBook Edition: July 2011