Survival

A new chapter in Hugo Award-winning author Ben Bova's hard science fiction Star Quest series unfolds in Survival.

A human team sent to scout a few hundred lightyears in front of the death wave encounters a civilization far more advanced, a civilization of machine intelligences.

These sentient, intelligent machines have existed for eons, and have survived earlier "death waves," gamma ray bursts from the core of the galaxy. Self-sufficient and completely certain that the death wave cannot harm them, they have no interest saving other civilizations, organic or machine.

Now that the humans have discovered them, they refuse to allow them to leave their planet, reasoning that other humans will inevitably follow if they learn of their existence.

The Star Quest Trilogy
#1 Death Wave
#2 Apes and Angels
#3 Survival