On the cheerful and reckless planet Eldorado, the already well-known xenologist Konstantin Kratov encounters the echains for the first time—descendants of Neanderthals once evacuated from Earth, where they had been threatened with inevitable extermination by the ancestors of modern humans. This historical circumstance does not make them any more sympathetic toward the latter, and the echains, who have become a powerful galactic civilization, challenge humanity... a challenge humanity does not accept. While rescuing the brilliant singer Ozma, taken hostage, Kratov is forced to improvise and once again finds an asymmetric solution to at least part of the problem. He manages to persuade the Bright Hand, one of the ruling races of Echainor, to remain neutral. And at the same time to obtain, “at sword’s point,” an echain aristocratic title.