About the book: 2017 / Residents of a small world on the edge of the Galaxy receive a message from Man - a mysterious interstellar wanderer, a creature whose motives are incomprehensible to the suspicious local nobility - the ministers and advisers of the Emperor. All of them convince the ruler of the planet not to respond to the message, and only the only one of the ministers, a high-ranking scientist, stubbornly refuses to agree with the opinion of the advisers...