About the book: 2023 / The Federation Security Service performs a variety of tasks throughout habitable space. Intelligence activities, the destruction of key enemy figures, diplomatic and trade missions - the range of missions performed is extremely wide. That is why, when the future graduate of the academy, Nick Reilly, is offered to go to another star system to retrieve an artifact of the cloudmen, he does not see anything strange in this. Unfortunately, the harmonious calculations of the analysts who prepared the mission only work up to a certain point. And although the main goal is at arm's length, events that go beyond the ordinary begin to accumulate around a small team of specialists. A simple accident? Someone's malicious intent? Systemic counteraction from the Alliance intelligence services? The young agent will have to figure out a difficult situation, giving the only correct answer to the main question - what is happening on that seemingly harmless planet where his command sent him.