Gleb Polynin, a graduate of the Academy of the Russian Military Space Forces, is preparing for his first interstellar flight. Everything is fine, but there is one problem - yesterday’s cadet now has a girlfriend. Tanya lives in the giant metropolis of Siberia. She spent most of her life in the virtual world, and she doesn’t want to plunge into the real world, much less fly into hostile Space! But Gleb insists. He believes that the wife of a Russian officer should accompany her husband wherever his military service takes him. Young people do not even suspect that a powerful super-civilization of metamorphs has intervened in their fate, which at all costs needs to restore the ancient network of Gates that provide communication between worlds.