Factoring Humanity — Robert J. Sawyer

In 2007, a signal is detected coming from deep space. Mysterious, unintelligible data streams in for ten years. Then the signal stops.

Heather Davis, a professor at the University of Toronto, has devoted her career to deciphering this message, while her personal life has gone astray: one child a suicide, her marriage failing. But she is the one who finally deciphers the message. She discovers a startling new technology that can rip through the barriers of space and time, holding the promise of a new stage in human evolution. Limitless exploration -- or the end of the human race -- appears close at hand.