THE VARIABLE MAN

Security Commissioner Reinhart is pushing Terra toward war with the Centauran Empire, trusting the SRB machines that predict victory odds. When a scientist unveils Icarus, a faster-than-light bomb meant to destroy the enemy's home world, the odds finally shift in Terra's favor and mobilization begins. But a routine time-bubble experiment drags a man out of the twentieth century, and his presence throws the prediction machines into chaos.

A traveling repairman with a horse-drawn cart is swept up by a tornado and finds himself in a strange, futuristic world. Hunted by authorities who fear what his presence means for a looming war, he must rely on his wits and skills to survive while searching for work and a way forward.

Thomas Cole, a man from the twentieth century accidentally pulled into 2136, has escaped into the Albertine Mountains after being hunted by Security Commissioner Reinhart. Reinhart believes Cole's unpredictable nature is disrupting the SRB machines, which have gone blank and can no longer forecast the war against Centaurus. Meanwhile, Peter Sherikov, the engineer behind the top-secret Icarus project, secretly captures Cole before Reinhart can destroy the mountain range. Sherikov reveals that Ica

Reinhart learns the variable man still lives and that Peter Sherikov has used him to finish the Icarus control turret. Fearing the SRB machines will be exposed to false data, Reinhart launches a surprise assault on Sherikov's underground Ural fortress to eliminate the variable man before the bomb can be launched against Centaurus. As missiles and Security forces tear the labs apart, the variable man escapes to the surface and is hunted down by Dixon. But the machines' odds tell a different story