The novel “Lamb in the Lion's Skin” tells the story of the further fate of the heroes of the novel “The Chalice of Fire”. Earthlings find themselves in a world groaning in despair, destroyed by a senseless war and engulfed in the flames of revolution, behind the banners of which lies something completely different from what is proudly inscribed on its panels. In a naive desire to help create a new, just order, the people of the earth are faced with immense treachery, betrayal and death. And only love can conquer everything on this path. In the fight against injustice and evil, the main character fights to never take up arms again... Those who are familiar with the work of Ivan Antonovich Efremov and have read his famous novel “The Hour of the Ox” probably remember the storyline of this work: on the distant planet Tormans, where, by the will of fate, migrants from Earth, a brutal oligarchic dictatorship was established. Two thousand years later, an expedition arrives here from communist Earth, the purpose of which is to study the situation and help the oppressed people of Tormans, an attempt to awaken in the Tormansians a desire to change the course of history on their planet in order to create a just society here, freed from grief and suffering. In his novel, Efremov tried to find answers to complex questions, constantly arguing with himself. As a result, in the story, the efforts of the earthlings bear fruit, and before leaving, one of them remains on Tormans to help local fighters against the dictatorship make revolutionary changes. And a hundred years later, the Earth receives news that Tormans has freed himself from the power of the inferno and honors the memory of its heroes. Efremov, embarrassed censorship, was forced to keep silent about many things, as a result of which the ending of the novel came out somewhat crumpled and polemical. Therefore, when reading “The Hour of the Ox,” I had many questions about the results of the expedition of earthlings and the reliability of the information that the Earth receives from Tormans a hundred years later. The text of the novel itself in this regard is very ambiguous and controversial. After some time, I had the idea to rethink the history of that very “troubled hundred-year period” of the transition from a total dictatorship to a free, highly developed society, which Ivan Antonovich himself left without details and specifics. Using the epilogue of his novel as a starting idea for which a multivariate future is possible, I tried to model my world, engulfed in revolutionary changes, which, in the end Ultimately, they lead to unexpected, although quite natural, results. At first I thought that I could describe these events in one work. It took me about eight years to write it (the ending, which I saw as the death of the main characters, was not given for a long time). But quite recently, completely unexpectedly for me, a continuation of that story was born. And then I realized that it was better to combine both stories into one big book, making them parts of a single narrative. So the story of the earthling Maxim Novak and his beloved will look more integral, logically and plot-complete. Therefore, for everyone who has already read the story “Lava” and the story “The Shield of Achilles” here, this novel will no longer be interesting (although, after the final editing in and certain changes have taken place). For those who has not yet read these works, I present my new novel in the series “Facing the Sun” - “Lamb in the Lion’s Skin”. You should not perceive it as a continuation or imitation of the novel by I.A. Efremov "Hour of the Ox". No, this is by no means fan fiction and Efremov’s worlds for me are just a bright flash that awakened inspiration. My novel is a completely independent work, although connoisseurs of Efremov’s texts may be able to discern in it “transparent bridges” that I deliberately threw into the work of the outstanding Soviet science fiction writer.