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The setup on the colonized planet Geb seemed ideal for humanity. Beside its habitable climate, it also possessed a ready-made slave-labor reserve. There were semi-intelligent natives, humanoid, unaggressive, willing to work. And so the colony thrived....

By the time that the recontact ship, Daedalus arrived with its trained Earth scientists, things had become less simple. The enigma of the native Sets jarred with the types of life evolved on Geb. It had become obvious that the Sets with their slave programming must have originated elsewhere might even be an android creation.

And that left the Daedalus with the greatest and most important problem of their whole cruise. Who were the originators of these Sets? Did Earth have a competitor Out There?

Cover art by HR Van Dongen.

Published by DAW in October 1979.
ISBN:0-87997-493-1

They call them the "rat-catchers." They're the crew of the spaceship Daedalus, which an economically destitute Earth has dispatched on a mission to re-establish contact with its far-flung, long-lost colonies in space. Alex Alexander, the ship's biologist, together with his staff, must help solve the mysteries of human and alien ecosystems that he encounters light-years from home.

The final contact made by the Daedalus Mission begins badly, even before the ship makes a hard landing in the middle of nowhere. The situation of the colony doesn't seem to make any sense, and neither does the situation of the indigenous aliens--the Sets--that have helped the colony survive and thrive. Alex Alexander doesn't take long to work out a hypothesis that might explain the mystery--a hypothesis that the people on the ground have already worked out for themselves--and he's fortunate enough to fall in with a colonist who's obsessively determined to prove the hypothesis. Unfortunately, the quest seems likely to become so dangerous that both of them might die trying--and there's too much at stake not to take it to the very limit of possibility, no matter what the cost.

The stunning conclusion (Book Six) of The Daedalus Mission series.

Published by Wildside Press in January 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4344-4408-0

The final contact made by the Daedalus Mission begins badly, even before the ship makes a hard landing in the middle of nowhere. The situation of the colony doesn’t seem to make any sense, and neither does the situation of the indigenous aliens–the Sets–that have helped the colony survive and thrive. Alex Alexander doesn’t take long to work out a hypothesis that might explain the mystery–a hypothesis that the people on the ground have already worked out for themselves–and he’s fortunate enough to fall in with a colonist who’s obsessively determined to prove the hypothesis. Unfortunately, the quest seems likely to become so dangerous that both of them might die trying–and there’s too much at stake not to take it to the very limit of possibility, no matter what the cost.

Published by Orion (ebook) in September 2018.
ISBN: 978-1-4732-1948-9

Review by Ian Braidwood

Cast of Characters:
Alexis Alexander, Cpt Peter Rolving, Linda Beck, Karen Karelia, Nathan Parrick, Conrad Silvian, Marial Valory, Helen Levasseur, Johann Gley.

The final Daedalus landing finds Alex & Co on Geb where, in a departure from customary nomenclature, everything is named after ancient Egyptian mythology.

The Sets of the title are Geb's indigenous humanoid aliens, who don't seem to feel that they have to live by the normal rules of natural selection and strive for anything. Indeed, they seem perfectly willing to work for the human colonisers, as long as you don't hurt them, when they just do a disappearing act.

Assuming we're not referring to the mysterious habits of the British publishing industry, The Paradox of the Sets actually isn't that hard to work out, so Brian presents his idea half way through and the rest of the narrative concerns itself with Alex's attempts to prove his hypothesis.

Although I've enjoyed the Daedalus series, they leave me feeling a little sad. I can't help feeling that after The Realms of Tartarus, they represent a capitulation; a return to a formulaic approach to serve the expectations of the publishing industry.