The solution to a computer gone out-of-control? A smarter computer. But how can we know that it won't take over, that it won't develop an instinct for survival, learn how to keep man from "unplugging" it? On an experimental space station housing 10,000 Marines, Dr. Ray Dyer begins a dry run of that smarter computer, Spartacus, to answer that question. And he can only hope the answer won't be punctuated with casualties.