Earth

Earth was never gone. It was hidden-and someone intends to keep it that way.
For generations, the colonies have lived with the consequences of the Severance: a lost homeworld, a fractured history, and a future shaped by those who control life-extending treatment. Now, with a fragile cease-fire holding behind them, Captain Kael Veyr and the crew of Nadir follow an old mission beyond the routes they know.
Their ship carries seven people, limited supplies, and evidence that has already changed lives. Ahead lies the Veil-a vast system of concealment and control. Reaching the other side means navigating more than dangerous space. It means trusting people who can decide whether the journey continues at all.
What they find is not a dead planet.
Earth has oceans, open skies, and cities where life has gone on without them. It also has its own account of the separation: a history in which the colonies were not simply abandoned, and isolation is still defended as protection. To people who grew up believing their homeworld was lost, that explanation may be harder to accept than the silence.
For Mira Senn, the return is painfully personal. The woman rescued from Eos can finally search for the places she remembers and the family she left behind. But finding home cannot restore the years she lost. As she confronts the traces of her former life, she must also uncover what happened to her mission-and defend her right to decide how her story is told.
In the Orpheus Archive and the laboratories studying the original Aion, the crew finds evidence that could transform the colonies' understanding of their past and their prospects for a longer life. Yet knowledge is not the same as a cure, and access to Earth is not a promise of unlimited treatment. Beyond the Veil, desperate people are waiting for answers. Some still have warships.
Then a new order threatens to close the very channel that made their journey possible.
With their movements restricted and a deadline approaching, Kael must protect his crew without surrendering the truth they came to find. Alongside allies willing to challenge their own institutions, they must preserve a way for two divided populations to speak-before fear turns a temporary separation into another generation of silence.
Earth is the fourth novel in Mortal Stars, M.P. Iwaniuk's character-driven science fiction saga. Blending the tension of a dangerous expedition with political intrigue, scientific discovery, and an intimate story of homecoming, it brings Nadir's crew to the heart of the mystery that began with The Ship That Never Was.
For readers drawn to resourceful civilian crews, contested histories, and difficult choices with consequences on both sides of an airlock, this is a journey into a world that offers neither easy salvation nor a simple enemy.
They crossed the silence to find Earth. Can they break it without starting another war?