If you'd rather place an order by talking to one of our cheerful order desk clerks, please call 1-888-232-4444 (USA and Canada only) or 250-383-6864. From Europe, ring our UK order desk clerk at local rate number 0845 230 9601 (UK only) or 44 (0)1865 722 113.

The Titicaca Effect

by Richard N. Tooker

333 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-2498; ISBN 1-4120-4690-4; US$27.00, C$31.00, EUR22.00, £15.50

An antigravity field erupts over Lake Titicaca and Bolivia suddenly possesses a new gateway to space. The Titicaca Effect is both science fiction and political thriller in one book.

Read more!

About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

An enormous antigravity field erupts into being over Lake Titicaca in the high Andes and South America's poorest country suddenly finds itself in possession of the greatest natural resource ever discovered, a naturally-occurring reversal of the earth's gravity near the Island of the Moon. The phenomenon provides a daily launch window into orbit and deep space beyond, making the island the focal point of a worldwide struggle that involves the U.S. military, the Red Chinese and the New Empire of the Incas, descendents of indigenous people of the region bent on reclaiming their lost glory at any cost.

American FAA investigator Tyler Freeman and scientist Dr. Thaddeus Stout investigate the mysterious disappearance of an airliner brought down by the Titicaca Effect and become enmeshed in a web of danger, geopolitical intrigue and terrorism. Along the way, they befriend the newly-elected and charismatic President of the Republic of Bolivia, who finds himself thrust center stage and nose-to-nose with the world's superpowers as he fights to retain control of the resource.

The Titicaca Effect is a compelling science fiction story, a rousing political thriller and a lively adventure, all in one arresting novel you won't be able to put down.

---

About the Author

From the time of his first visit to Bolivia more than twenty years ago and subsequent visits as recently as 2003, Richard Tooker has been motivated to tell a story about this beautiful but poorly-understood region of the world and its rich heritage as the cradle of western civilization. A voracious science fiction reader, he resolved to use his favorite genre to craft a tale that would be compelling on many levels - scientifically intriguing, culturally significant, and a highly entertaining read for science fiction fans.

Although this is his first work of fiction, Richard has been a regularly-published business writer for more than a decade. A database marketing executive by day, Richard lives with his wife Victoria (also a writer) and two rambunctious but basically well-behaved beagles in Plano, Texas.

---

Excerpts

Chapter One: The Effect

The old man eased his boat off the bank and into the waters of the great blue lake. As he had done nearly every morning for the last 60-plus years, he slowly poled the boat away from the shore. Today he was prepared to row the three miles toward Isla De La Luna, the Island of the Moon. The waters near the shoreline of the smaller of the two islands offshore were a favorite spot, and he hoped the fishing would be better today. Perhaps he would catch a salmon in addition to the usual lake trout.

It was early and still cold on the altiplano, but there was no wind to disturb the surface of the lake, which made the long trip more pleasant.

As he neared the island, the old man stopped rowing just long enough to eat some goat cheese and drink from the cold, clear waters of Lago Titicaca. He was very near his destination, and he scanned the horizon for signs of the hydrofoils that sometimes carried tourists to see the ruins left by the ancient ones. Thankfully, the noisy boats usually disgorged their passengers on the larger of the two islands more than a mile away, leaving his favorite fishing spot undisturbed. He saw no sign of the boats, but peered intently at the surface of the lake near his final destination. Something wasn't right.

Even though there was still no wind, nearly 200 yards of the water's surface had begun to churn where it should have been still, and it bulged upward visibly near the center of the agitation. Small waves were breaking on the rocks at the island's edge. Cautiously, he used a paddle to move the boat forward slowly. Such a disturbance might indicate the presence of fish, but if so it would be the largest school of fish he had ever seen. As he neared the disturbance he could hear a high-pitched hissing sound, and the air above the churning water began refracting the image of the mountains in the distance as if it were a great lens of some kind. Suddenly a snake-like, thrashing stream of water sprang from the surface of the lake, followed within seconds by a gigantic waterspout and a deafening roar. At the same time, the boat began accelerating as if it had a mind of its own. Startled, the old man tried to stop it, but his paddling had no effect. The boat was picking up speed as it neared the disturbance, in spite of his now-frantic efforts to halt it. Within seconds, the boat began to break up. Arms and legs flailing, the old man screamed in terror as both he and the wreckage of his boat left the surface of the great lake and shot straight upward, gaining speed and altitude simultaneously.

The last thing the old man experienced before he died was the roar of the wind, the intense cold of the earth's stratosphere, and the sight of his homeland from more than five miles up.

* * *

"American 291, this is La Paz control. Turn right to one-nine-zero and descend to 20,000."

"God, I love this airport," the co-pilot said with a smile. "Where else in the world do you land at full throttle?"

"That's why the runway is a half-mile longer than the one at Logan," the pilot responded. "You have to overcompensate on practically everything they teach you in training to land at this altitude." He nosed the aircraft down and started the right turn the tower had asked for. The co-pilot picked up the intercom microphone and announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our final descent to La Paz's El Alto airport. Those of you with window seats should have a good view of Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable lake in the Americas. Please fasten your seat belts for the duration of the flight. We are about 50 miles out, and should be landing in about ten minutes."

Behind the flight deck, the flight attendants were walking the center aisle picking up the last of the cups and napkins, and making sure that the passengers had complied with the request to buckle up, turn off electronic devices, raise tray tables and sit up straight before landing. Passengers with window seats were gaping at the spectacular view of the lake immediately below, the high plain surrounding it, and the immense Andes in the distance.

The plane disintegrated.

No warning lights, nothing on the radar, not a cloud in the sky, no malfunction detected, it ran into a wall of water that suddenly appeared seconds before it intersected the plane's flight path. When the plane hit the water, it ripped apart as if a giant hand had swatted it from the sky. Some of the wreckage headed for the waters of the lake below, but most of it, along with all the passengers, shot upward toward the cold of space.

Additional Excerpts from The Titicaca Effect

Freeman could barely see the reporter, still desperately holding onto the anchored sawhorse, through the sheets of rain. He grabbed one end of the 100-foot rope that Malloy was carrying and tied it securely around his waist, then handed the other end to the foreman. "All four of you hold onto the rope!" he yelled into Malloy's ear. "See if you can get a good foothold behind those boulders! I'm going in after him!"

Malloy nodded, then gestured to the three workmen who had followed him to grab the rope. They circled around behind some medium-size rocks that were buried in the shoreline, wedged their feet into the crevices where the rocks met the shore as best they could, and held tightly to the rope as if they were preparing for a game of tug-of-war.

As soon as Freeman saw that the men were in position, he rechecked the square knot he had tied to secure the rope around his waist, tried unsuccessfully to wipe the water from his eyes with his forearm, then edged gingerly toward the edge of the Titicaca Effect. He could feel his feet losing purchase with the ground as he neared the waterspout, until they finally slipped from beneath him and he fell headfirst into the effect.

He realized instantly that he had forgotten to tell Malloy to take up the slack in the rope. It snaked out behind him as he plummeted deeper into the effect, all the way past the soldier clinging to the sawhorse, until the full length of the rope played out and stopped his fall with a violent snap. He felt the sharp pain of multiple ribs breaking and fought desperately to stay conscious as the air was squeezed from his lungs and his body swung back and forth like a pendulum, spinning at the same time.

* * *

A horn sounded. "Two minutes 'til launch, everyone," Stout said. "Look sharp!"

One of the computer screens in the bank of instruments to Stout's right began flashing the seconds until launch in big yellow numerals as the countdown descended. Everyone was watching the screen, not saying anything and seemingly hypnotized, until it reached ten seconds. One of the engineers began counting down.

"10 - 9 - 8 -7 ...."

Freeman repositioned himself between Stout and President Maldonado to gain a better vantage point.

"6 - 5..."

"Launch the module now!" Stout shouted. The lead McDonnell-Douglas engineer pressed a red button on the console in front of him, the thrusters on the module fired and it leaped into the sky. The noise from the thrusters could barely be heard above the loud hissing sound created by the Titicaca Effect.

"4 - 3 - 2..."

The surface of the water enclosed by the dam bulged upward, carrying the launch platform with it. The module rose steadily, straight up, by now more than 200 yards in the air and gaining speed quickly. In another second or two it would be completely out of sight.

"1 - Zero!"

A snakelike stream of water thrashed wildly for less then two seconds, then snapped into a vertical column of water that began to grow wider very rapidly. The noise was deafening.

"I'm tracking the module right in the center of the pipe, and about a third of a mile ahead of the water," one of the engineers shouted. "Thrusters have powered down to station-keeping mode!"

"What does that mean?" Maldonado shouted to Stout.

"There's no longer any reason to accelerate the module! It will stay ahead of the water, so the thrusters are just being used to keep it centered in the middle of the antigravity field!"

"Altitude two miles!" the engineer shouted. "Right on plan! Telemetry is A-OK!"

"Holy Jesus, look at that!" one of the assistants yelled, pointing to the surface of the water. The roaring column of water had now reached its maximum width, and the level of the water enclosed by the dam was dropping rapidly. The 200-yard-wide lake was losing water at a foot a second. At that rate, the 60-foot deep launch area would be bone-dry in less than a minute.

* * *

"What do we do about this, Mr. President?" Freeman asked. "I've put a hold on the bidding, and it won't be long until people wonder why."

"Let them wait," Maldonado said. He knew that this was going to be one of those defining moments. Bolivia was about to assert itself as one of the world's superpowers. If it did not, the country stood to lose control of its one shot at economic and political power. "I want the Chinese to wonder if we've found out what they tried to do. While they're wondering, I'll place a call to the Chinese premier. When I tell his people that I want to personally tell the premier why China has been disqualified from bidding on launch dates, I'm pretty sure they'll put him on the phone."

"Disqualified? Are you serious?"

"I'm absolutely serious, Tyler. We have to do this. We simply cannot let them get away with it. They have to understand that Bolivia is in charge. He'll deny any knowledge of the bribe, of course, and I'll tell him that I never for a minute believed he would personally have anything to do with it. China will be welcome to bid in a later round, just as soon as he has straightened out this unfortunate misunderstanding created by people beneath him who obviously don't understand how important it is to keep anything from happening to the friendship between the People's Republic of China and the Republic of Bolivia. I'll also promise him that since this was obviously not an official act of the Chinese government, I'll make sure that news of the attempted bribe doesn't get out if they'd prefer to simply withdraw from the first round. I'll tell him that you're about to go talk to all the reporters covering the auction and tell them why there's been a delay, but I can stop you if he'd prefer to handle it that way."

"What if he balks at withdrawing?" Freeman asked.

"He won't, once he understands they're out of the first round and there's no negotiating that point. It's important for them to be able to save face. They'll withdraw. Can you enforce it at your end?"

"Not a problem, Mr. President. It's all electronic. We'll just unplug them."

Freeman said goodbye and went to find Henson. The executive was in a small conference room off the main hallway to the control center, waiting for Freeman to tell him what to do about the hold.

"What's the plan?" Henson asked when Freeman appeared at the door to the conference room.

"Pull the plug on China and let's get on with it."

"What do I tell them?"

"Nothing. Just pull the plug."

* * *

When the limo pulled up in front of the apartment building where Freeman lived, there were six men in black suits waiting on the busy sidewalk near the curb. One of them was Manco Capac, and Freeman immediately recognized the other five as being among the men he had seen with Capac when they had met. They moved toward the car as it pulled to the curb.

"You two wait in the car," Freeman said as he opened the door. "Don't get out for any reason."

"Who are those men?" Janey asked.

"Just stay in the car. I'll take care of this." Freeman responded. "Lock the doors and call the police," he said to the driver, then slammed the door behind him. The driver did as he was told, using his cell phone to call the Bolivian police as they watched Freeman confront the six well-dressed Indians.

"Mr. Capac, what are you doing here?" he said.

"We heard your daughter was coming for a visit, Mr. Freeman. We thought she should be properly welcomed to Bolivia," Capac responded.

"Listen, you sonofabitch, you get within ten feet of my daughter and I'll have your ass thrown in jail!" Freeman growled. His body looked like a coiled spring and his hands balled into fists.

"Please, Mr. Freeman, you mistake my meaning." Capac said, his tone as polite as the first time they had met. "We only mean to offer her a gift. She is an honored guest."

Freeman glared at him, his body still tense. "Yeah, sure. I know how you treat your guests, and I'm telling you, you lay one finger on her and I'll break your Goddamn neck!"

Capac motioned to one of the men with him, who produced a cube-shaped, gift-wrapped package about six inches to a side. "It is a gift, Mr. Freeman. A priceless artifact created by my ancestors. We truly mean her no harm."

"Why would you want to give her a gift?"

"As I said, we only wish to welcome her, and I thought perhaps we might talk today."

"Well, you're not giving her anything. And I told you before, if you have business with me, call my office for an appointment."

"I did call, Mr. Freeman. Your staff would not put me through to you. I'd like to know what President Maldonado's intentions are regarding the demands of the New Empire of the Incas."

"His intention is to ignore you, Mr. Capac, as I told you when we first met. He does not take you seriously." Freeman could hear the sound of sirens in the background, growing quickly louder as police cars converged on the apartment building from three different directions.

* * *

The scene at the crater was bedlam. The force of the explosion had torn three of the technicians working on the thruster frame free from their safety lines, and all three had been blown completely across the crater where their bodies lay in a bleeding heap. They were surely dead. Three more technicians had been stopped from falling by their harnesses, but they hung limply from the concrete trusses, suspended by those harnesses over the crater. Two members of the news crew had also fallen into the crater. One was moving around, the other lay motionless. Even worse, the intense heat of the fireball had ignited two of the ascent thrusters, which were lifting the thruster frame and the spacecraft off the cargo carrier in slow motion, skewing it sideways. It was obviously about to drop into the crater, and there was nothing anyone could do to control it or stop it from happening.

Watching the carnage in the control room from the single television camera that had not been destroyed in the blast, Thaddeus Stout shouted into the communication system, "Everyone who can walk, get to the crater now! We need ropes, cables, trucks with winches, anything that can be used to pull people out of the crater down there immediately!" He froze as he watched the thruster frame and Condor One tip over and fall into the crater, spinning crazily from the thruster acceleration as it fell.

He glanced down at the countdown clock on the console in front of him. It was now 62 minutes until eruption, and he knew that anyone still alive in the crater when it came would surely die. That included the five astronauts, it could include the President of the Republic of Bolivia, and quite possibly his best friend, Tyler Freeman. He ran outside just in time to jump into a Hummer driven by a burly security guard who had grabbed as much rope as he could carry and thrown it into the back of the vehicle. They headed for the crater, tires squealing.

---

Catalogue Information

---