Before you is the Earth and near-Earth spaces of the distant future. A future in which it is desirable only for people with VERY STRONG NERVES to find themselves! For example, it is possible to use artificial intelligence for military purposes, but what to do if the intelligence itself does not want to be forced to fight? How will a radio transmitter, assembled according to the drawings contained in the first message from an alien civilization, behave? What will humanity do after the simultaneous receipt of a letter to almost all electronic mailboxes on Earth with a diagram of a device for interstellar travel and the coordinates of two planets suitable for humans? What awaits a group of researchers sent to a virgin planet to not only study and collect samples, but also to advertise the routes of a travel company? How will approaches to military issues change in the new era of human development? What are the prospects for the first human contact with the inhabitants of the Cat World? What can children's giftedness result in in the future, and what problems can they solve? Who can meet unfriendly inhabitants of an unknown planet, and at the same time armed terrorists, on an ordinary regular ship traveling along the Earth-Resort route? What offer can a cowardly person receive from an interesting agency? What should the inhabitants of the Sad Planet, with which a huge number of civilizations come into contact every day, do? What surprises might the work of an ordinary transport dispatcher throw up in the future? And finally, how can a simple hunt turn out in the stellar era? All these questions and not only them, one way or another, are answered by the cycle “The Path of a Thousand Miles.”