The first part of the Galaxy trilogy. Taxana. A distant, cold planet where earthlings founded a colony to mine the mineral tarrlat. After several peaceful years of mining the mineral, unknown aircraft appeared over Taxana and began to hunt for the transports of earthlings. Having learned who owns these aircraft, earthlings send a diplomatic mission to the planet of this civilization, with the intention of concluding a peace treaty with it. But civilization is destroying the diplomatic mission. The surviving diplomats unwittingly end up in the Andromeda galaxy and, having gone through difficult and difficult trials, still find a way to return to their Milky Way galaxy.