The Cosmic Computer

Conn Maxwell comes home to Poictesme after six years at university on Terra, and the whole town of Litchfield is waiting for him to tell them where Merlin is.

Merlin was the legendary supercomputer of the war that left Poictesme littered with abandoned military hardware and sunk in poverty. Everyone believes it is still hidden somewhere in the Trisystem, and that finding it will make them all rich. Conn has a secret: in all the records on Terra, he found no sign that Merlin ever existed. But if the hunt can get people digging up army depots, building spaceships and working again, maybe the legend can do some good before anyone learns the truth. Then the search starts turning up pirates, politicians and things nobody expected.