In a galaxy-spanning novel of adventure and philosophical conflict, set in the year 2165, a fleet of colonizing starships from Earth approaches the planet Argus, 138 light-years from Earth. During their years-long voyage, Earth has developed a stargate and ended up in an interstellar war, waged by robot fighters far from Earth and commanded by the central artificial intelligence of the gnostic system owned by the McConwell Company. When the AI realizes the futility of the war it's engaged in, it sets out to chage its own program, engaging the conspiratorial help of a varied crew of humans and aliens and risking the ultimate destruction of all intelligent civilization.