Phase Space

Phase Space
Stephen Baxter

2025. Tied in to Baxter’s masterful Manifold trilogy, these thematically linked stories are drawn from the vast graph of possibilities across which the lives of hero Reid Malenfant have been scattered.Reid Malenfant is the commander of a NASA earth-orbiting science platform. The platform is intended to probe the planets of the nearest star system by bouncing laser pulses off them. But no echoes are returned … and Reid's reality begins to crumble around him. Huddling with his family, awaiting the end – or an unknown new beginning – Reid tells stories of other possibilities, other realities.The linked stories encompass the myriad possibilities that might govern our relationship with the universe: are we truly alone, or will we eventually meet other lifeforms? The final possibility – that the Universe as we know it is in fact an elaborate illusion designed to protect us from the fearful reality – is brilliantly explored in the tour de force novella that ends the volume.

STEPHEN BAXTER

PHASE SPACE

STORIES FROM THE MANIFOLD

AND ELSEWHERE

COPYRIGHT (#ulink_5f2bc84b-14af-5ec5-87c8-1dd5dc3a647a)

Voyager an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk (http://www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk/)

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2002

Copyright © Stephen Baxter 2002

Cover image of Calabi-yau manifold © Laguna Design/Getty Images

Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015

Stephen Baxter asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Source ISBN: 9780008134501

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2012 ISBN: 9780007387335

Version: 2015-09-02

CONTENTS

Cover (#u9e6cb393-6209-5905-860a-52f27e574b51)

Title Page (#u3b97b24e-470a-5e47-ad5d-fc0c6489570c)

Copyright (#u7d7b264c-af14-5292-a4d6-caa424f2b796)

Prologue (#u8edcb20a-7a23-5d0f-93a0-4b208dcbafd4)

DREAMS (I) (#ub383fb97-3796-50f4-85ae-c4a9e30d33fb)

Moon-Calf (#uc25a2a29-8d2b-51ec-a5bc-df9d0f287765)

EARTHS (#uad50a383-c238-50ad-96f4-82547c392cf4)

Open Loops (#u33562ac7-abed-5234-a6b3-5b03ccfcef4d)

Glass Earth, Inc. (#u5fe2bc09-0ffe-55b9-888c-65669c580c8e)

Poyekhali 3201 (#u84e48acf-2483-5347-906c-76a93d50c708)

Dante Dreams (#u78c55ab9-a1f9-5997-92d2-ae6efbb0b489)

War Birds (#litres_trial_promo)

WORLDS (#litres_trial_promo)

Sun-Drenched (#litres_trial_promo)

Martian Autumn (#litres_trial_promo)

Sun God (#litres_trial_promo)

Sun-Cloud (#litres_trial_promo)

MANIFOLD (#litres_trial_promo)

Sheena 5 (#litres_trial_promo)

The Fubar Suit (#litres_trial_promo)

Grey Earth (#litres_trial_promo)

Huddle (#litres_trial_promo)

PARADOX (#litres_trial_promo)

Refugium (#litres_trial_promo)

Lost Continent (#litres_trial_promo)

Tracks (#litres_trial_promo)

Lines of Longitude (#litres_trial_promo)

Barrier (#litres_trial_promo)

Marginalia (#litres_trial_promo)

The We Who Sing (#litres_trial_promo)

The Gravity Mine (#litres_trial_promo)

Spindrift (#litres_trial_promo)

Touching Centauri (#litres_trial_promo)

DREAMS (II) (#litres_trial_promo)

The Twelfth Album (#litres_trial_promo)

Afterword (#litres_trial_promo)

Keep Reading (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)