From the award-winning author of the Coyote series comes a tale of mystery and adventure at the far reaches of the solar system. In the early years of the 22nd century, an international space expedition is exploring the moons of Jupiter. Tragedy strikes when a bathyscaphe lowered into the global ocean beneath Europa's frozen surface is lost, costing the lives of two scientists. The lone the bathyscaphe's pilot, a woman whose haunting beauty and sexual hunger led both men to have affairs with her. She claims that her craft was attacked by an enormous creature prowling the frigid waters beneath the ice. Other expedition members doubt her story. They believe the creature doesn t exist, and that she's lying in order to hide the fact that she deliberately killed her former lovers. It's up to another crewman the survivor of a freak accident aboard the expedition ship to determine the truth. Is this murder...or one of the greatest discoveries of all time?
Author
Before becoming a science fiction writer, Allen Steele was a journalist for newspapers and magazines in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Missouri, and his home state of Tennessee. But science fiction was his first love, so he eventually ditched journalism and began producing that which had made him decide to become a writer in the first place. Since then, Steele has published eighteen novels and nearly one hundred short stories. His work has received numerous accolades, including three Hugo Awards, and has been translated worldwide, mainly into languages he can’t read. He serves on the board of advisors for the Space Frontier Foundation and is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. He also belongs to Sigma, a group of science fiction writers who frequently serve as unpaid consultants on matters regarding technology and security. Allen Steele is a lifelong space buff, and this interest has not only influenced his writing, it has taken him to some interesting places. He has witnessed numerous space shuttle launches from Kennedy Space Center and has flown NASA’s shuttle cockpit simulator at the Johnson Space Center. In 2001, he testified before the US House of Representatives in hearings regarding the future of space exploration. He would like very much to go into orbit, and hopes that one day he’ll be able to afford to do so. Steele lives in western Massachusetts with his wife, Linda, and a continual procession of adopted dogs. He collects vintage science fiction books and magazines, spacecraft model kits, and dreams.
