In the Monolith colony on Koma - the second exoplanet of the IMB system - the religious population of the Church of the Instructions and the Technical Group - a small scientific team led by Andrei Dikisyan - have difficulty coexisting. On orders from the capital Opus, she excavated the old city of Aurora and found the Shard there, a strange artifact of unknown origin. The technical team decided to keep the discovery a secret, but the newcomer from Opus Bakker was against these plans. His desire to take the Shard, as well as the true purpose of his arrival, causes serious discord in the Tech Group, twisting cause-and-effect relationships into a tangle of lies and manipulations. When the stakes rise high enough, the religiously minded society of the Church of Instruction comes into conflict with the leadership of the Monolith, demanding the arrest of the Tech Group and a ban on scientific experiments on the planet. Whatever the outcome, this long day will change the future of the Monolith and the planet Coma forever.