His Master's Voice

On the low-gravity worlds of the Belt, Daniel Oak is the kind of man powerful people call when they need a problem made to disappear. Summoned to Raven's Rest by the sharp-tongued industrialist Shalimar Ravenhurst, he learns that his own earlier actions have left the experimental robot ship McGuire legally and technically cornered. By being the first human to give it orders, Oak has become McGuire's sole "master," a safeguard against conflicting commands that has instead created a dangerous mess. But McGuire is no ordinary machine. Built to serve as the mind of a mobile spacecraft, it must think fast, speak English, and obey the Three Laws without contradiction. Earlier versions went insane under conflicting instructions, and the current ship has become so self-protective that any further tampering may drive it to abandon the project entirely. Ravenhurst wants Oak to help salvage the ship at Ceres, where rival interests are already circling. As Oak moves through the Belt's hard-edged politics, he finds himself balancing secrecy, leverage, and the future of robot spacecraft itself. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.