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.

Copyright

By Robert Charles Wilson from Tom Doherty Associates

A Hidden Place

Darwinia

Bios

The Perseids and Other Stories

The Chronoliths

Blind Lake

Spin

Axis

Julian Comstock

Mysterium

Vortex

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

Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

A Tor® eBook

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

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

Table of Contents

Title Page

Chapter One. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Two. Turk Findley’s Story

Chapter Three. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Four. Treya’s Story / Allison’s Story

Chapter Five. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Six. Turk Findley’s Story

Chapter Seven. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Eight. Allison’s Story

Chapter Nine. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Ten. Turk’s Story

Chapter Eleven. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twelve. Turk’s Story

Chapter Thirteen. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Fourteen. Turk’s Story

Chapter Fifteen. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Sixteen. Turk’s Story

Chapter Seventeen. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Eighteen. Allison’s Story

Chapter Nineteen. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twenty. Turk’s Story

Chapter Twenty-One. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twenty-Two. Allison’s Story

Chapter Twenty-Three. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twenty-Four. Turk’s Story

Chapter Twenty-Five. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twenty-Six. Allison’s Story

Chapter Twenty-Seven. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Twenty-Eight. Allison’s Story

Chapter Twenty-Nine. Sandra and Bose

Chapter Thirty. Turk’s Story

Chapter Thirty-One. Sandra

Chapter Thirty-Two. Isaac’s Story / Orrin’s Story / The Sum of All Paths

Acknowledgments

By Robert Charles Wilson from Tom Doherty Associates

Copyright