Ethan of Athos is a 1986 science fiction novel by American author Lois McMaster Bujold. The title character is Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Sevarin District Reproduction Centre on the planet Athos, who is sent to find out what happened to a shipment of vital ovarian tissue cultures. Set in the fictional universe of Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, the novel mentions but does not feature her usual protagonist Miles Vorkosigan. To date, Bujold has never revisited the settings of Athos or Kline Station in her many subsequent novels, but the events of Ethan of Athos are later referred to indirectly in the novels Borders of Infinity (1989) and Cetaganda (1995).
Bujold had written her first novel Shards of Honor and its sequel The Warrior's Apprentice — both unpublished — when she wrote Ethan of Athos, a standalone work that was purposely short "because the current cargo-cult rumor amongst the wanna-be-published back then was that editors would be more likely to read a short manuscript." All three novels were subsequently sold, and published in 1986.
Bujold named Athos, a planet founded and maintained as an exclusively male-populated colony with a planetary religion and ideology supporting this single-sex structure, after the Greek Mount Athos, which has prohibited the entry of women for religious reasons since even before the ban was officially proclaimed by the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomachos in 1046.
Ethan of Athos has been reprinted several times, and appeared in the 2001 Bujold omnibus Miles, Mystery and Mayhem alongside Cetaganda and the novella "Labyrinth". The novel was released on audio cassette in September 1999 narrated by Michael Hanson and Carol Cowan, and as a digital audiobook in March 2009 narrated by Grover Gardner.
Plot summary
Dr. Ethan Urquhart, Chief of Biology at the Sevarin District Reproduction Centre on Athos, is upset to find that his long-awaited shipment of ovarian tissue cultures from off-planet consists of an unusable mixture of dead and animal tissues. An exclusively male-populated planetary colony, continuing reproduction on Athos relies on uterine replicator technology, but the centuries-old cultures introduced by the original colonists have recently begun deteriorating into senescence. With their entire shipment purchased from the planet Jackson's Whole inexplicably consisting of genetic trash, the Population Council of Athos sends a reluctant Ethan offworld in search of a fresh batch of tissue cultures and (if possible) a refund from the original supplier, House Bharaputra. This is a very daring assignment as it means contact with women, who Athosians are taught are demonic and terrifying.
Ethan arrives at the interstellar hub of Kline Station and immediately encounters his first woman, Commander Elli Quinn, a rather unorthodox intelligence officer with the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet (and a subordinate of Admiral Naismith's). Though she is pleasant and even helpful, Ethan is wary of her. He is soon abducted and interrogated by military agents from Cetaganda who are seeking a fugitive named Terrence Cee as well as their own lost tissue cultures. They refuse to believe that Ethan is not an opposing intelligence operative. Elli rescues Ethan from certain execution. They become reluctant allies as Elli explains that she has actually been hired by House Bharaputra to track the Cetagandans, and for her own reasons determine what their interest is in the tissue cultures and how it relates to a secret Cetagandan research project.
Terrence approaches Ethan with a request for asylum, revealing himself to be the last survivor of a Cetagandan genetic project to create telepaths. Although his telepathy is reliable, it has a small range and can only be triggered for a short amount of time by ingesting large doses of the amino acid tyramine. Terrance's female counterpart, Janine, had been killed in their escape, but he managed to preserve her body and transport it to Jackson's Whole, where he paid House Bharaputra to splice her genes into the ovarian cultures that were intended for Athos. Terrence had planned to also emigrate to Athos with the cultures, but had been delayed on his way to Kline Station, and is now horrified to learn that the cultures were stolen and replaced by the useless material that ultimately arrived on Athos.