Only eight centuries will pass, and humanity will spread out across the nearest star “islands.” It will build gigantic space liners. It will find brothers in mind. It will learn to penetrate spatial wormholes of the Dark Paths. But all these achievements will not make people happy, will not protect them from viruses, mental epidemics, economic crises, and maniacal rulers. And then, out of the depths of Orion’s Dark Aggregate, unknown monsters will come. Then the secret service of the Galactic Empire will send an expedition to planets orbiting ancient red stars—where in the oceans live giant cephalopods, and in the depths of a basalt plateau lies the mysterious Nursery of the Gods, a witness from the primordial epochs of the Cosmos.