Space Zero: The Meld (Electronic book text)

A star freighter stopping to take on water is harassed by an alien probe. Like a Guard Dog mine it threatens to detonate when the ship's stardrive powers up, rendering the ship Dead in Space. The pilot triggers the galactic Space Zero distress call. When Lifeship LS48 arrives, the hostile mine turns philanthropic. It leads them to a subterranean data repository on the third planet, a structure containing the knowledge from five prior civilizations that inhabited the Milky Way. Mankind is offered custodianship the alien Library. But nothing is free. As the Library implants information into the students' minds it will absorb their knowledge to add to its own. Then a historian studying the prior custodians makes a devastating discovery. Every one of the cultures became extinct within five centuries of First Contact. Was it just coincidence, or does the Library have a hidden agenda? Is Humanity in danger? And if so, how do we defend against a civilization millenniums ahead of our own?