Reckoning Infinity

First published in hardcover by Tor Books and the Science Fiction Book Club.

Synopsis: It's early in the new millennium, and the outer reaches of our solar system have been explored. Vast orbital stations the size of middle-sized countries dot the system, filled with thriving colonies. Mankind has grown to fill the void and is poised to colonize the stars. The universe seems to be a stable, comfortable place - and the only voices to echo through space have been human.

Until now.

A fast-moving entity the size of a small moon has entered our solar system. Is it a ship? A new life form? An alien probe sent to destroy other sentient races?

Lieutenant Commander Alis Mary Nussem is one of the humans who will go forth to discover what this mystery is. Disfigured in a devastating ship accident, more machine than woman, Nussem agrees to the dangerous mission. She is eager to make a difference and somehow reclaim the humanity that she lost.

What she doesn't bargain for is the sudden appearance of Lieutenant Karl Stanton, a man whose life seems to resemble Job's - and who was directly responsible for the accident that nearly killed Nussem. These two very different people will be thrown together on an odyssey that will force them to reevaluate the rules that they have lived by all their lives.

And what they find will change mankind's universe forever....

"[Stith] has always had a real talent for describing bizarre environments...will offer fans of hard SF much to satisfy their sense of wonder." -- Publishers Weekly

"vividly imagined, from the big opening scenes of the shuttle-habitat collision, to the descriptions of the medical procedures used to save Alis's life, to the small details of working (and being injured) in spacesuits." -- Locus

Alis Mary Nussem had a promising career aboard space station Tokyan. But when a shuttle accidentally rammed the station, it damaged much of her body and took away any chance she had at a normal life. Now as much machine as woman, Alis has sought isolation from humanity by taking remote assignments on the fringes of the solar system. Her strategy backfires when a new assignment brings her aboard the Ranger, a ship whose crew includes the Tokyan shuttle pilot. But personal conflicts fall by the wayside as the Ranger discovers what appears to be an alien ship.