Mote in Gods Eye — Larry Niven; Jerry Pournelle

OF WHAT THE EYE SEES WE KNOW NOTHING...
A black hole in space. And piercing through, a beam of ruby light brighter than a hundred Moons. Was it the eye on the face of God, or the blood-red sun of our first intergalactic visitors?

The delicate mission of the warship MacArthur -- to seek out and confront an extra-terrestrial world where eerie, silent beings defy known biology ... where miniature creatures, idiots savants, are used as deadly weapons ... and where reassuring smiles hide a planetary secret of devastating universal impact.