Almost a thousand years have passed since the first flight into space, and humanity is still locked in its “cradle,” forced to explore every corner of the solar system suitable for life. For almost a thousand years, the best minds of humanity have been looking for ways to get at least to the nearest star systems. But all attempts invariably fail. No success, only disappointment. As sometimes happens, the solution was found by chance, suddenly, and it turned out not to be what scientists expected. But there was a price to pay for taking a step into a new era—not only with money, not only with dedicated labor, but also with the lives of ordinary people, not all of whom had anything to do with Space. And certainly none of them was going to sacrifice themselves even for the sake of fulfilling the long-standing dream of humanity...