New entry in the nationally best-selling Liaden Universe series. Sequel
to national bestseller
The Gathering Edge.
Menace from Back Space Looming out of the Dust of Time
The Complex Logic Laws were the result of a war waged hundreds of years
in the past, when two human powers threw massive AI navies at each other
and nearly annihilated themselves. Being human, they blamed their tools
for this near miss; they destroyed what was left of the sentient ships,
and made it illegal to be, manufacture, or shelter an independent logic.
Strangely, however, the Free Ships and other AIs did not turn themselves
in or suicide, they merely became wary of humans, and stayed under their
scans. A clandestine support network grew up, including hidden yards
where smart ships were manufactured, and mentors--humans specially
trained to ease a new intelligence into the universe--socialized them,
and taught them what they needed to know to survive.
Among those with a stake in the freedom of Independent Logics is Theo
Waitley, who is somewhat too famously the captain of intelligent ship
Bechimo. Theo's brother, Val Con yos'Phelium, presides over a household
that has for a generation employed an AI butler. Recently, he approved
the "birth" of the butler's child, who was sent, with human mentor Tolly
Jones, to rescue or destroy an orphaned AI abandoned at a remote space
station.
Then there's Uncle, the shadowy mastermind from the Old Universe, whose
many projects often skirt the boundaries of law, both natural and
man-made--and the puppet-masters at the Lyre Institute, whose history is
just as murky--and a good deal less honorable.
All have an interest in the newly-awakening Self-Aware Logic that is
rumored to have the power to destroy universes.
The question is: Who will get to it first?
