Mikhail Kirow lived his whole life as a Communist Party member of a puny, underdeveloped, but stable and relatively benevolent socialist state, following the policy of spanning a single solar system. The said state is unwilling to expand into the outer space, due to lack of will to face the supposed and factual insanities and cruelties of the greater galaxy and few but some lost merchants and vagabonds ever enter the system. That is enough for Kirow. He'd rather preserve a fair, albeit backward regime than make a gamble on better future or let greed of an individual exert influence on his beloved collective.

Alas, a galaxy you have looked away from, can sometimes come to you. The coming events will compel Kirow to descend unto the greater galaxy, head-first and will put his entire prior life and its meaning under the question mark. Few things will grant relief from humor that befits the dark universe of this story. Mikhail might lose his entire raison d'être.. or reinvent it.