For thousands of years people have looked at the stars. For hundreds of years they debated whether there was life on them. Pundits and ordinary people broke their spears, imagining the first contact with another mind. People believed in a higher intelligence, but when contact took place, it brought to Earth not peace, but a sword. The Universe opened its arms to humanity, giving it the stars, but even there, beyond the boundless Void, the same passions that people left behind boil between the cosmic races on Earth. Hundreds of years have passed, during which nothing has changed except technological progress. Russians have remained as unpredictable and, as always, survive under any power and adversity. The largest colonial sector and a lot of people willing to take a bite of the pie. And as always and at all times, the most tremendous changes in the life and fate of entire races and peoples begin with the act of one person - a small pebble that creates an avalanche. It’s unlikely that anyone expected that a simple space tunnel builder would become such a pebble that triggered an avalanche of change.