Stephen Baxter’s fourth Destiny’s Children novel, Resplendent, will be out soon from Gollancz. It tells the wider story of the Destiny universe, and will include, among others, such Silver Ghost tales from Asimov’s as “On the Orion Line”
(October/November 2000) and “Ghost Wars” (January 2006). The author is currently at work on a new time-paradox series called Time’s Tapestry. The first book, Emperor, should appear from Ace in January. Stephen certainly plunges us into time’s breathtaking depths in his newest tale for Asimov’s.
I was choppered in from L.A. We flew maybe sixty kilometers north, skimmed across the Mojave, and descended close to the town of Edwards. From the air, Elstead’s facility was a ring of blocky white buildings that might have spanned a couple of kilometers, set out over the desert. The hub of the facility was a huddle of buildings at the rim of the circle toward the southwest, like a diamond on a wedding ring.
We landed on a helipad, an uncompromising square of black tarmac. I climbed down with my backpack. This was the Mojave, in July. I had flown straight out from a rainy London, and jet lag and furnace heat made me reel.
A gaggle of technicians in orange jumpsuits, some of them carrying lightweight cameras and sound gear, stood at the edge of the pad. A tall, spare figure came striding toward me, smiling. He wore a jumpsuit like the rest, with a nametag on his chest and some kind of mission patch on his arm. His coiffure was expensive, his skin toned, and though I knew he was in his fifties he had the easy physical grace of a man with the time to play squash.
