Ben Bova - Asteroid 1 - The Precipice.pdf - Ben Bova - margozap

THE

PRECIPICE

BOOK 1 OF THE ASTEROID WARS

BEN BOVA

TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction.

All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Edited by Patrick Nielsen Hayden

A Tor Book

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN 0-312-84876-5

First Edition: October 2001

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Irving Levitt, a rare jewel among men

To Barbara, who adorns my life with beauty

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

And with special thanks to Jeff Mitchell, a real rocket scientist; to Chris Fountain,

metallurgist and optimist; and to Lee Modesitt, an economist with imagination; true

friends all.

The modern tropics and their fringes support more than half the world's population,

numbered in the billions. Many already live at the fringe of survival, dependent on food

aid transported from the grain belts of more temperate zones. Even a small climatic

shift... would physically compress the geographical limits for cereal cropping.... I leave it

to your imagination what such a pace of climate change would entail for most people.

— Stephen Drury

Stepping Stones: Evolving the Earth and Its Life

... some men have already embarked on a bold new adventure, the conquest of outer

space. This is a healthy sign, a clear indication that some of us are still feral men,

unwilling to domesticate ourselves by any kind of bondage, even that of the spatial

limitations of our planet's surface.

—Carleton S. Coon The Story of Man (Third Edition)

Ben Bova - Asteroid 1 - The Precipice.pdf