Hard sci-fi: universe seeded with malignant quantum-responsive objects, left by an alien civilisation.

[Astrid]

I read a book perhaps 5 - 10 years ago. It was a good, if disturbing, hard sci-fi novel. It was on Amazon Kindle but I've lost it somehow.

The plot involved a researcher who was trying to figure out why black cubic objects appeared at certain locations, and metastisised whenever observed by him. He concluded that they were invented by a now-defunct (suicided?) civilisation to ensure that no other sentient lifeforms could inhabit the universe either.

In the end he needed to send his own baby son into a cave of the root of the objects, because he surmised that the baby would be able to look at those objects without growing them. In the end I seem to remember that the success of that strategy was left as an open question.

Anyway, it was a great novel that raised some really obvious questions around the nature of tech and the universe. But for the life of me I can't remember its name. Can anyone help? Thanks.