Darren Quilliam had always felt that what his uncles had achieved on the planet Verus was just the sort of thing that he wanted to do when he graduated.
So, now he is a seasoned veteran of the exploration division, based at Cape Canaveral and used to hopping from world to world through the growing Nexima Federation.
Exploration, the spread of sub-light spacecraft in an ever-growing sphere with Earth at the centre, continues and Darren’s next prospective destination is quickly approaching. AI pilot and long-time friend, Nexi, is now in charge of the flight of the Manannan and both are looking forward to working together on a new mission.
I’d have to admit that the possibility of seeing yet more cats had always had some considerable appeal, but that desire to visit India wasn’t really strong enough to overcome any reticence until now.
What was initially going to be a simple two-week trip to northern India to see tigers morphed quickly into an almost four-week epic, as the possibility of snow leopards was added into the mix by going north into Ladakh for an exploration of the Himalayas.
With the usual mixture of elation and despair, this is another epic journey, but across part of a very different continent in search of very different wildlife.
As the title and cover make clear, the quest for a tiger is a resounding success, but both the run-up to the trip and during it are tinged with sadness and loss. It might even turn out to be a good point to bring these mammoth explorations to a sensible end.
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