The Variable Man

Terra has spent a century bottled up by the decaying Centauran Empire, and the SRB computers finally say the odds are turning. Security Commissioner Reinhart is ready for war, and Peter Sherikov's labs under the Urals are close to the weapon that could break the ring: Icarus, a bomb that travels faster than light.

Then a time-research bubble, hauled back from the early twentieth century, brings an unexpected passenger: Thomas Cole, a wandering fix-it man with a horse-drawn cart and a gift for mending anything with his hands. The moment he arrives in 2136, the machines can no longer predict anything at all. Reinhart wants him dead. Sherikov wants him at a workbench. Cole just wants to go home.