The year is 2157. Maxim Kammerer, the pilot of the Free Search Group, makes an emergency landing on an unexplored planet, where he is captured by the aborigine Zef and handed over to the authorities. The local social system resembles a militaristic dictatorship of the 20th century. The power belongs to anonymous rulers — Unknown Fathers, they erect Towers all over the country, which propaganda calls anti-ballistic.