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The Family had never seen a manhunter like it. And when its machine-mind engulfed Cap’n Fanny, they knew Mantis was no simple killing-mech. A collector of human minds, a plunderer of living personalities, Mantis was a weaver of complex, murderous illusions. But why, Killeen wondered, did it indulge in such elaborate variations on slaughter when in a single blast it could destroy the remnants of Mankind?

His answer lay waiting in Mantis’s extraordinary sensorium, in the museum of living ghosts and defiled spirits which drove the heart of the machine . . .

Continuing the story begun in Great Sky River, Benford creates a stunning novel of the last band of humans fleeing extinction in the Galactic Center. This last remnant of humanity is led by Killeen, a man elevated to command in desperate times by his luck and daring. He manages to reach a new planet where he encounters vast wonders. But with one enemy behind them, the humans are dismayed to discover an alien race more awesome than any they have encountered.