InterstellarNet: Enigma Part One -- The Matthews Conundrum

Historian Joshua Matthews has landed a terrific new position, and with it the opportunity to write the definitive history of the Interstellar Commerce Union. In those annals, he plans to focus attention--in his opinion, long overdue--on the improbability that an interstellar community even exists.

But somehow, returning home from the party thrown to celebrate his good fortune, he has lost a month of his life. Everyone is certain he's been away on an epic bender. And so, rather than promoted, he is disgraced, unemployed, unemployable ... and unaware just how lucky he actually was.