Permanence

Permanence by Schroeder, Karl. mass_market edition. ISBN: 9780765342850.

Young Rue Cassels of the Cycler Compact -- a civilization based around remote brown dwarf stars -- is running from her bullying brother, who has threatened to sell her into slavery. Fleeing in a shuttle spacecraft from the sparsely populated and austere comet-mining habitat she has lived in her whole life, she spots a distant, approaching object, and stakes a legal claim to it. It is not the valuable comet she hoped for but something even more wonderful, an abandoned Cycler starship. Her discovery unleashes a fury of action, greed, and interstellar intrigue as many factions attempt to take advantage of the last great opportunity to revitalize - and perhaps control - the Compact. This is the story of Rues quest to visit and claim this ship and its treasures, set against a background of warring empires, strange alien artifacts, and fantastic science. It is a story of hope and danger, of a strange and compelling religion, Permanence, unique to this star-faring age, and of the re-birth of life and belief in a place at the edge of forever.