Book description
The Theocracy has been dead for twenty years, and the Polity rules on
Masada. But the Tidy Squad consists of rebels who cannot accept the new
order. Their hate for surviving theocrats is undiminished, and the
iconic Jeremiah Tombs is at the top of their hitlist.
Escaping his sanatorium Tombs is pushed into painful confrontation with
reality he has avoided since the rebellion. His insanity has been left
uncured, because the near mythical hooder called the Technician that
attacked him all those years ago, did something to his mind even the AIs
fail to understand. Tombs might possess information about the suicide of
an entire alien race.
The war drone Amistad, whose job it is to bring this information to
light, recruits Lief Grant, an ex-rebel Commander, to protect Tombs,
along with the black AI Penny Royal, who everyone thought was dead. The
amphidapt Chanter, who has studied the bone sculptures the Technician
makes with the remains of its prey, might be useful too.
Meanwhile, in deep space, the mechanism the Atheter used to reduce
themselves to animals, stirs from slumber and begins to power-up its
weapons. The new standalone novel by Neal Asher featuring two of his
favourite polity creations - the hooder and the gabbleduck...
