As Billy continues his mysterious encounter with the ship's powerful core, known as Mother, he begins to form a strange connection with her. Mother has generated the Remants' surroundings and she is lonely after centuries of isolation. But when Mother delves into the depths of Yago's sinister mind, a strange computer-generated baffle pits Yago and an army of Civil War soldiers against the Blue Meanies. Will Yago sell the Remnants out to Mother? Will the other Remnants forge an alliance with their enemies, the Blue Meanies, in an attempt to destroy Mother? Will their encounter with Mother lead to a better control over the Remants' environment-or to their ultimate destruction?

And when Baby's true identity and its strange connection to Mother is revealed, the promise of a new computer-generated Earth will suddenly seem attainable. But at what price?