Of Galleons Lost on Stellar Seas

Toward the end of this century, if we don't blow ourselves up along the way, the true age of exploration and colonization will begin. Why not? We've done it all before. The story of the wanderers who challenged North and South America around 20,000 years ago is only now being reconstructed. A mere 500 years ago Columbus, Cortez, Montejo and Pizarro found and conquered the undreamed of worlds those earlier people created. Another of Earth's epic adventures was that of the Lapita people who set out from Taiwan and journeyed on clumsy rafts through Indonesia and the Solomons and finally out to Fiji where they developed true sailing canoes, became thePolynesians and eventually found every island in the vast Pacific. Following the Call of Maui, they visited every scrap of land in that great sea. But what if some of those intrepid wanderers decided to follow Maui's Call to the lands above thehorizon as well--to challenge seas wider yet? And 500 years from now, the dangers and wonders will be no less than they were before. And, just as in the past, some will lose their way. Earth's first colonists will reach the stars aboard immense automated sleepships. And even that era will become history as faster-than-light technology eventually relegates the sleepships to its dusty pages. At least that's what Ellen thought when she selected that ancient era for her master's thesis. But what about the dead body in the Archives? Ellen tries to convince herself that it has nothing to do with her. But some of those great sleepships are still out there. Someone wants them and only Ellen knows where they are. Does her safety truly lie in finding the lost ships before her enemies find her? Who are these unknown assailants and is the fat old spacer really on her side?