The Centauri Surprise
The Centauri Surprise
The Centauri Surprise is the fourth in the Carson/Roberts archeology in T-Space series, sequel to The Eridani Convergence. The events take place some fifty years after the first Alpha Centauri expeditions.
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Plot
The novel picks up shortly after the events of The Eridani Convergence, focusing on events in the Alpha Centauri system. Hannibal Carson receives a package of presumed-illicit artifacts from someone who inherited them. The collection contains another of the "pyramid key" talismans, and this one seems to point to the Alpha Centauri system itself. But there are no known pyramids on either Kakuloa or Sawyers World ... or are there?
Meanwhile Rico, who has been missing and presumed dead since The Reticuli Deception, wakes up in a traumapod at an unknown location, and is being asked awkward questions.
Carson and Jackie Roberts arrange to meet Peter Finley, one of the first settlers on Sawyers World, and the geologist who discovered "Pete's Peak," the suggestively pyramid-like feature he declared to be a old volcanic neck. After some discussion, Carson decides that the peak is worth checking out anyway, but of course there's a catch. It's in the middle of a no-humans-allowed wildlife preserve, and neither Carson nor Homeworld Security want anyone to know the real reason Carson might be interested in it.
Roberts and the Sophie, meanwhile, are dispatched on a resupply run to the closed-to-outsiders base on Proxima b, a planet orbiting Centauri system's red dwarf companion. It isn't the first time she's been to a red dwarf planet, but she learns something interesting here. When she returns to Sawyers World, Ducayne calls on her to help evaluate some high tech alien artifacts brought back from the Chara pyramid.
Of course the Velkaryans have taken an interest in what Carson is up to, and Rico's old Velkaryan nemesis from Earth has recently arrived on Sawyers World.
Throw in a wargame exercise between the UDT Space Force and the independent Sawyers World Space Guard, and there's plenty of room for surprises.
Elevator Pitch
Like opening up nesting matryoshka dolls, this book ties up some loose ends from earlier in the series, while laying groundwork for things to come. Just when you think one puzzle is solved, suprise, there's another inside it.
Locations
In no particular order:
- Sawyers World - Alpha Centauri A II
- Kakuloa - Alpha Centauri B II
- Grainger Station - Proxima-b (Alpha Centauri C I)
- Deep space