"The setting of Niven's 1984 novel The Integral Trees was striking and imaginative,
even for this acclaimed world builder; it's well worth the second visit made in this sequel....[A] wonderful
imaginary world, where people can fly like birds and ponds full of fish hang in midair."--Publishers Weekly

In the free-fall environment of the Smoke Ring, the descendants of the crew of the Discipline no
longer remembered their Earth roots--or the existence of Sharls Davis Kendy, the computer-program
despot of the ship. Until Kendy initiated contact once more.

Fourteen years later, only Jeffer, the Citizens Tree Scientist, knew that Kendy was still watching--and
waiting. Then the Citizens Tree people rescued a family of loggers and learned for the first time of the
Admiralty, a large society living in free fall amid the floating debris called the Clump. And it was likely
that the Admiralty had maintained, intact, Dicipline's original computer library.

Exploration was a temptation neither Jeffer nor Kendy could resist, and neither Citizens Tree nor Sharls
Davis Kendy would ever be the same again...