Earth becomes the arena for a secret and long war waged by two powerful space civilizations that dream of forcing humans to write their history according to the interests of the aliens. But not all Earth people agree to be helpless puppets in someone else’s theater. On the distant planet Valgalla and in Russia, which is entering the Great Patriotic War—everywhere, Andrei Novikov and his friends prove they will never become a blind tool in the hands of the representatives of a “higher mind.”