On the planet Ilmatar, under many kilometers of ice and water, a team of scientists from Earth is exploring intelligent aborigines. The expedition is not easy, because all direct contacts with the Ilmatarians are prohibited by the more advanced race of Sholen, the first aliens that earthlings encountered after mastering interstellar travel. Technologically, the Sholen are far ahead of people and consider them too aggressive creatures, capable of bringing an innocent civilization to destruction with their progress. When the Ilmatarians mistakenly kill a famous journalist from Earth, tension between people and the Sholen increases sharply, and the resulting diplomatic conflict threatens to turn into a full-scale war. Opponents do not yet know that the blind and backward Ilmatarians, equally alien to both earthlings and Scholens, are far from being as simple as they seem, and in the coming conflict they will play a special role, because at the first contact any mistake can turn out to be fatal.