Turing Files

Can a robot be afraid? Ask Romo. In this futuristic page-turner an astronaut robot becomes something more. Romo awakens on the Mars colony ship to find it in trouble. He doesn't know what makes him different from the other Robo-Nauts, but he knows that his new life is in danger. PACE, an authoritarian Earth-based organization will stop at nothing to prevent the colonists from reaching Mars alive, and his presence may be their only hope of survival.

The colonists get a cold welcome upon arrival in Mariner Valley and soon discover that the many organizations that planned their mission hadn't communicated well on specifics. Worse, the ground crew waiting for them are a collection of angry, tired survivors of ill planning, and their new home is a dirty cave. Romo, while eager to get on with his own mission, sees fit to try to make Mars more livable for his friends first. But their enemies are still in the skies above, and there are many things Romo doesn't know about human nature.

Railas finds himself powered up on a world distant from Earth. And he has an unusual job. He is to be the official justice of Shangri-La, the first human presence on Titan, one of the moons of Saturn. But his first case turns up more than his employers anticipate. A rogue outsider accused of stealing a methane substation appears to be trafficking in more than just methane and illegal gambling. Otherwise how could he have acquired more wealth than one could earn in a lifetime? The trail of evidence leads Railas beyond the walls of the colony and into the methane lakes of Titan in search of a missing human woman that nobody on the station seems to remember.