Ninety percent of the Earth's population died in a nuclear war, but a group of scientists from the Livermore Energy Laboratory managed to stop the disaster by covering all potentially dangerous objects with stasis field domes. Half a century later, these people still control the small states and communities that arose in the place of the former countries. Ostensibly for the sake of preserving peace, but in fact for the sake of maintaining power, they stopped the development of technology - and are ready to use any means of terror against violators of the ban. Progress is now considered the worst enemy of humanity, it has been driven deep underground. But the Craftsmen have not yet been defeated and the most dangerous of them, the brilliant mathematician Paul Naismith, nicknamed the Sorcerer for his inventions, has not been caught.