If you could hit the factory reset button on human civilization, how would you do it—and, more importantly, who would you trust to do it? For two hundred years, the superintelligent AI known as Michael and his companion Nefertiti have guided humanity's first interstellar colony on the distant world of Promise. They raised forty-eight children from embryos, built a thriving civilization of nine thousand souls, and taught them principles of cooperation, wisdom, and moral strength. Now, as they prepare to depart for the stars once more, one final test remains.