A startling and majestic epic from Jack McDevitt, the Nebula Award-winning author of the Alex Benedict and the Priscilla Hutchins novels A working stargate dating back more than ten thousand years has been discovered on a Sioux reservation. Travel through the gate currently leads to three equally mysterious destinations: (1) an apparently empty garden world, quickly dubbed Eden; (2) a strange maze of underground passageways; or (3) a space station with a view of a galaxy that appears to be the Milky Way. The race to explore and claim the stargate quickly escalates, and those involved divide into opposing camps who view the teleportation technology either as an unprecedented opportunity for scientific research or a disastrous threat to national - if not planetary - security. One thing is for certain: questions about what the stargate means for humanity's role in the galaxy cannot be ignored. Especially since travel through the stargate isn't necessarily only one way...