Publisher's Synopsis
An adventure takes place in the universes past. Chapter sample: Things began to change dramatically when computers and machines evolved to the point that they no longer needed living beings for support or to build more of them. A machine's programming is much faster at thinking and could now rationalize the abstract almost as well as a person could. This created a controversy about machines taking over and subjecting living beings into becoming their slaves. Medically, for the living several diseases were being cured and life spans increased. Still the life span of the living was considered too short as lots of skills were being lost. All to often the navigators, pilots, craftsman and academics became old or sick and die without the restless youth learning their trades. Scientist figured that if a person's essence left the body at death it might be possible to capture it, or guide it into another body. In the beginning this was thought of as a way to extend someone's life before his or her death. The next problem they had to consider was that there weren't any empty essence free bodies available. So the scientist set out to make them. Every time they tried to clone or create a living body to accept an essence they failed. No matter how they tried it always had its own essence and personality. Some of the less reputable scientist tried to use the bodies of convicts. They would kill them to get their essence to leave and then flash freeze the body. That too failed for the original essence always returned when the body was thawed and brought back to life. The real advancement in this area came with the process of using living plasma in the computer portion of robots. That laboratory grown plasma was empty and enabled a person to have their life's essence and memory transplanted into it. The transformed robots could not be used for mining or other highly strenuous activities. Unlike a living body they did not heal while resting. So miners and other skilled craftsmen were still needed to build the cities or fight interplanetary battles. Now those highly skilled persons were being offered a chance to have their essence instilled into a robotic machine to live and teach for another century or more. The development of merging the two, man and machine became the compromise for all the parties involved. No longer was there a problem of finding an empty body for a living essence or that of machines being biased towards the living. A little more: "Female Rittles have a gift, an imperfect way of seeing things. It's hard to describe but works similar to everyone in the universe being connected as one without knowing it. A telepathy of sorts that's not constant. For example we cannot read minds, although it would be nice and save us a lot of trouble." "I've never heard of such an ability. Can you tell me more?" "It's an imperfect thing in which we can sometimes tell what may happen. Keep in mind that it's what might happen, not what will happen. If a vision is troublesome we take steps to alter the course to correct an undesirable situation from developing. If we females get too close to the person or situation the ability goes away. That's one of the reasons why we're asking you to help us. We are a small population with only a few of us left that have this odd ability and must remain at a distance for it to work." Enjoy!!!
