Rehoboam Kafkel, twice the winner of the Gold Medal of the Confederate Geographical Society, is among the most renowned geographers of modern times. Yet his statement is but a homunculus of the truth: Correct in the details but falling far short in scale.

For there are those beginning to understand that beyond the icy rim--in some unfathomable way--there exist other worlds, physically independent but with histories twisted together in the most intricate of knots.

And now those cords are tightening...