The Aleph Extraction is a covert ops caper story that in bygone days could have been an Alfred Hitchcock movie about spies on the Orient Express. The undercover team here roams around a luxury starliner making its way through a wormhole. The McGuffin is an ancient gold tablet that is meant to do I am not quite sure what. And, because it is the McGuffin, I am not obliged to care. The action involves good drinks in the bar and a nifty EVA to break into the ship’s vault. There are stun guns, old-fashioned projectile weapons, and on-again-off-again gravity boots. So, not many new sci-fi wrinkles but readable all the same. ( )