: Far future. Exploring the depths of outer space, a young earthling crashes on an unfamiliar planet and tries to save local residents from dictatorial rule.

Part one. Robinson

Exploring space, earthling Maxim Kammerer crashes and lands on an unknown planet. Maxim remains unharmed, but his ship explodes, and he finds himself in the forest. The atmosphere is breathable, the environment is similar to earth.

After some time, Maxim meets several aborigines who bring him to a prison camp and interrogate him. Having not received answers from him and not having understood his language, Maxim, accompanied by Guardsman Guy Gaal, is sent to a certain institution.

Maxim spends several days there, hoping for full contact with the inhabitants of the planet, but it does not happen. (Later it turns out that it was a television studio copying his unusual mentograms (memories) to include them in an entertaining television show). He is already thinking about running away, but one day an unknown person named Funk takes him from the center and takes him to the city. On the way, Funku becomes ill, he is pulled out of the car, and Maxim is left alone. After walking around the city, he enters the diner where he meets the young waitress Rada Gaal. He escorts her home. Armed bandits attack them on the way. Using supernatural for ordinary people physical abilities of earthlings of the future, Maxim easily copes with them.

Rada brings him home. Her brother lives there - already familiar to Maxim Guy Gaal - and Uncle Kaan.

At this time, Funk was looking for him on behalf of his leader the Wanderer, a very influential person.

Part two. Legionary

Thanks to Guy Gaal, Maxim falls into the guard (Combat Legion) as a candidate for active privates.

The inhabitants of this planet are sure that they live on the inner surface of the sphere, in the only one of the existing worlds, and the rest of the Universe is filled with solid mass. The reason for this is the atmosphere, because of which the surface of the planet seems concave, and the starry sky is not visible. Maxim’s attempts to present the present state of affairs could lead to the fact that he would be declared crazy. He says he lost his memory. People think that he is a savage or mutant from distant lands. They call him "Mac Sim."

There are several countries on the planet: Honti, Pandea, Island Empire, Country of the Fathers, into which Maxim fell, and several others. Before, there were more countries, and civilization was developed, then a nuclear war broke out, which led to the devastation and pollution of vast territories, wildness and degradation of a large number of people. The remaining countries are constantly at war with each other.

When the economy is in a lousy state, it is best to start a war in order to immediately shut the throats of everyone.

According to the official doctrine, the majority of the population supporting the rulers of the country - the wise and fair "Unknown Fathers" who managed to end the civil war, are confronted by "geeks" - brutal marginals trying to destroy the towers of the PBZ (anti-ballistic defense) bribed by the neighboring states of Honti and Pandea. Geeks can be recognized by bouts of headache.

Maxim is impressed by the sincere enthusiasm with which the population supports the Unknown Fathers and the guard, and Guy Gaal, his sister and uncle are sympathetic.

Probably, this world was rather complicated and governed by many laws, but Maxim had already discovered one law, and the main one, for himself: do what everyone does, and just as everyone does.

Maxim participates in the military operation to arrest the geeks, then is present at the interrogation and sentencing. Geeks turn out to be ordinary convinced, often smart and courageous people, their trials are swift, and their sentences are cruel. Maxim suspects that the official version may not be true. He tries to share doubts with Guy, but he does not understand him.

The guards captain Chachu appoints Maxim a "blood test": orders to shoot the condemned geeks. But Maxim lets them go and refuses to obey the captain. Chachu shoots Maxim, but he survives thanks to the phenomenal ability to regenerate.

At this time, the Unknown Fathers, worried about the economic situation in the country and the spread of their influence abroad, are deciding on the war with Honti. For the war stands Umnik - State Attorney.

Part three. Terrorist

Maxim finds the underground, and they tell him that Honti and Pandea have no ballistic missiles, and on the southern border there is only a desert inhabited by dying mutants. Towers are needed in order to cause a headache in geeks with their radiation and set the rest of the population on them. Underground workers have been trying to destroy the towers for twenty years.

Maxim considers this activity pointless, but agrees to participate in the destruction of the tower. The tower manages to blow up, but at the same time four underground members perish. The operation is a trap for the security forces. Maxim runs away and returns to the apartment of Guy and Rada Gaal, tells them what he found out, but they do not allow the thought that the Unknown Fathers are wrong or lie.

Maxim, Guy and Radu are arrested.

Freedom, it is like air or like health - while it is, you do not notice it and do not understand how it feels - without it or outside it.

Together with the captured geeks, they are sent to clear the southern borders of old military equipment and mines, destroy mutants and build a network of PBZ further south.

Upon learning of this, the Wanderer asks the State Prosecutor to transfer Maxim to him. The prosecutor agrees, but having studied the case of Mack Sim and marveled at his physical characteristics, he orders to immediately bring the exiled to him, and the Wanderer to inform about the death of Maxim.

Part Four. Convict

In the camp, Maxim falls into the detachment of Zef - a geek who was once a well-known psychiatrist All Zef. By chance, he discovers the Fortress (the command center for controlling military equipment that is no longer working) and meets the Golovans, creatures with large heads that look like dogs. After that, on vacation, the underground members Vepr and Zef tell him the whole terrible truth about the towers. The radiation of the Towers constantly has a hypnotic effect on people, forcing them to blindly believe government propaganda and follow the orders of the rulers. Twice a day, it intensifies, causing people to euphoria and enthusiastic worship of the authorities. A small part of the population, called geeks, is not exposed to radiation, and when it is amplified, it experiences terrible pain. The ruling elite consists of geeks. The purpose of some of the leaders of the underground is to destroy the tower system and rid the population of fooling; other leaders of the underground want to seize control of the towers for their own purposes. That is why the purpose of the towers is hidden not only by the authorities, but also by the leadership of the underground.

Maxim decides to escape from the camp. The territory is not guarded, but there is radiation around, so the prisoners cannot escape. Maxim is not afraid of radiation, and he runs away on an old tank. Having escaped and picking up the guy who was exiled to the border and accidentally met along the way, Maxim finds himself in the south in a desert scorched by an atomic war, where mutant people live, suffering from radiation and oppressed by the guards and wild people from the south.

In front of him was a burial planet, a planet on which intelligent life barely glowed, and this life was ready to completely extinguish itself at any moment.

After leaving the towers' coverage area, Maxim tells Guy the true state of things and convinces him of his innocence.

Maxim comes to the mutants and invites them to come up with weapons against the Legion at the border or to attract savages from the south for this fight. But this idea fails, as the mutants are weak and prefer to live the extra years, instead of trying to radically change something. Maxim has a dispute with the Sorcerer (a surprisingly intelligent mutant) about the influence of one person on the masses of people and the ability of society to achieve freedom. The sorcerer tells him that for a successful struggle you need to be able to suppress the voice of conscience with your mind and think coldly, without too much idealism.

Your conscience is spoiled ... it begins to moan at the slightest inconvenience, and your mind reverently bows before it, instead of shouting at it and putting it in its place.

Maxim decides to form an alliance with the Island Empire - a distant country with a strong fleet, whose white submarines sometimes attack the Country of the Fathers. The leader of the mutants, the Prince-Duke, gives Maxim one of the last planes of the planet - a huge bomb carrier. Together with Guy, Maxim flies to the Island Empire. The aircraft is shot down by the automatic air defense system remaining from the time of the war. Maxim manages to land a downed plane in the water and save himself and Guy. Near the coast Maxim and Gai find an abandoned white submarine, and in it there is a collection of cut off human heads and albums with photos of the massacres of residents of the Country of Fathers and mutants, reflecting the ideology of the Island Empire. It becomes clear that there can be no talk of an alliance with the Island Empire.

Upon learning that the Country of the Fathers started a war with the neighboring country of Honti (the former part of the united empire), Maxim and Guy return. Like most prisoners, they are sent to the front to clear minefields in front of the troops. Funk finds him there, but Maxim does not agree to leave his friends. Guy dies during the battle. Maxim manages to survive, and he enters the Institute under the guidance of an influential member of the Government of the Wanderer. The Wanderer himself is away.

Part Five Earthman

War leads to the defeat of the Land of the Fathers. The public prosecutor, who was a supporter of the war, understands that for this the Fathers must execute him in a few days. He finds Maxim and reports the coordinates of the Center that manages the entire tower system. According to his plan, Maxim should penetrate the Center and switch the radiation system to a depressed field, from which the entire population of the country will become temporarily powerless, then put a film in the radio studio calling to raise a rebellion against the Unknown Fathers and switch the radiation from depression to normal, as a result of which people should rebel and lose their power, and recognize Maxim as ruler. The prosecutor suggests being with him an adviser.

Politics is the art of washing clean with very dirty water.

Maxim agrees, but acts in his own way and completely explodes the Center, after which he enters into a battle with the unexpectedly appeared Wanderer, whom he considers the main villain.

It turns out that the Wanderer is an earthling Rudolf Sikorski, a worker of Galactic security, and the Rada is alive and is in his residence. The wanderer accuses Maxim of having ruined the carefully prepared plan for saving the planet Saraksh with his actions and points out his mistakes. So, radiation starvation sometimes ends with schizophrenia; to restore the economy and economy requires decontamination of virtually all of the planet’s soil; hunger and inflation are approaching the state. In addition, the Island Empire is preparing a major invasion of the Country of the Fathers, which it is difficult to stop without "black radiation" (radiation causing severe depression).

Maxim claims that he will remain on the planet, and his main goal is not to allow anyone to rebuild zombie towers.Otherwise, he is ready to obey Rudolph. Sikorski does not mind.