Cauldron — Jack McDevitt

By 2255, the age of starflight is over. The Academy of Science and Technology is long closed, and the only efforts at space exploration are carried on by privately funded foundations. However, physicist Jon Silvestri insists that an abandoned prototype for a much more efficient star drive is workable. Priscilla Hutchins, now a fund-raiser for the Prometheus Foundation, persuades the group to back his research. Soon the Cauldron -- the core of the galaxy -- is only months away. At long last, the mystery of the deadly omega clouds that have devastated the galaxy for centuries can be penetrated. And a handful of brave men and women, Priscilla Hutchins among them, will journey into the very heart of the Cauldron...