A powerful mysterious race of “key-makers” creates a vast transportation network connecting hundreds of worlds. What goals they pursue is known to no one, and the key-makers themselves never answer questions. It seems their duty is reduced to one thing: listening to stories that may serve as a pass to another planet. Anyone can come to the Station, tell a story, and if the story pleases the key-makers, they can get to any planet included in the network. However, there is one danger: if the story doesn’t please them, the storyteller won’t return.
Those who know how to come up with the right stories use their talent to the fullest. One of those “inventors” is Martin Dugin. His work resembles courier service most of all: to pass through the Gates and deliver a letter, a kilogram or two of rare spices, or blueprints of an unknown device; find a debtor who ran off or an unscrupulous business partner.
One day, Martin is hired to find a girl who passed through the Gates and disappeared into a chain of other people’s worlds. Martin has to set off on a dangerous and strange interplanetary journey…