Dances on the Snow
Encyclopedia
Dances on the Snow is a science fiction novel written by the Russia
n sci-fi and fantasy
writer Sergey Lukyanenko
. Despite the fact that the novel was written later, it is considered to be an indirect prequel
to the novel Genome
. It takes place in the same fictional universe as Genome, about one hundred years prior to the novel's time frame. Unlike Genome, Dances on the Snow hardly deals with the issue of genetic engineering
but does touch on the issue of cloning
. However, the biggest focus is the problems of free choice and mind control
.
is a major problem on Quarry. In fact, one's ability to obtain a job depends on the quality of his or her neuroshunt implant, allowing direct mind-to-machine connection. Tikkirey's parents' neuroshunts have become obsolete and they have no money for an upgrade. His father has been unemployed for years, and his mother makes a pittance. Incapable of paying for their social support, Tikkirey's parents are forced to invoke their "constitutional right to commit suicide
." For that, Tikkirey's social support is extended by 7 years, during which he can get education and find a job, as his neuroshunt is above the local standard. If his parents forgo their "constitutional right", the entire family will be evicted from the Dome. The life expectancy outside the Dome is 1-2 years.
After losing his parents, Tikkirey decides to leave Quarry by any means necessary. As such, he signs up on an interstellar ore transport as a "calculation module" — a wetware
computer used for complex calculations at faster-than-light
speeds, as normal computers fail to work. A calculation module remains in hibernation, most of the time, while a stream of data is shunted through his brain. While this is a highly paid position, continuous misuse of the brain atrophies the frontal lobe
, causing the person to lose his free will. After the expiration of the standard five-year contract, 97% of calculation modules are incapable of making their own decisions and continue flying for the rest of their lives. The other 3% manage to muster enough willpower to leave the ship (2%) or cancel the contract before time is up (1%); however, even they have to spend years relearning to make even the simplest decisions (e.g. a simple choice of soft drink
is an extremely difficult process for them).
After regaining consciousness on the beautiful and wealthy planet of New Kuwait
, Tikkirey demands to cancel his contract and leave the ship. He immediately finds out that a clause in the contract prevents him from doing just that, as he must pay off his 150,000 credit insurance policy, which will require Tikkirey to serve another 1.5 years on the ship. The contract is specifically written to prevent calculation modules from using ships as free rides. Fortunately, Tikkirey finds out that the crew took pity on the boy and broke the law by not getting him an insurance policy. He receives his earned credits and leaves the ship. He then takes a taxi
and gets a room at a cheap hotel. He then hits another snag: his money will only last him about a week. New Kuwait's laws require local permanent residency
for employment, but the process of obtaining it takes at least six months.
At the hotel, Tikkirey meets Lion, a boy his age, who was born and grew up on a space station
. The next day, Tikkirey encounters and befriends a mysterious man named Captain Stas, who turns out to be a phage from the planet Avalon. Phages are knight
-like members of an organization whose goal is to rid the Empire of its enemies. Unlike the rational humans around them, phages are encouraged to listen with their hearts. A phage is genetically engineered to be stronger and faster than any normal human. He is capable of using something called an "imperative voice", causing most humans to follow his instructions without question (similar to the Voice from Frank Herbert
's novel Dune
). A phage's weapon of choice is a multi-functional semi-intelligent plasma
whip, chosen not for its deadliness but for its psychological effect. The phages' mission, abilities, and moral code have earned them the nickname "jedi
", which they tend to dislike, as it trivializes the phages' purpose.
Stas is on a mission to investigate the suspicious activity on New Kuwait of agents from the planet Iney ("frost" in Russian
). Iney has already "peacefully" allied with several other Imperial worlds and is gaining in strength, threatening the stability of the Empire. Before Stas or Tikkirey can do anything, most of the population of New Kuwait suddenly falls asleep. Tikkirey and Stas are one of the few still awake. Stas takes the boy and, at Tikkirey's request, the unconscious Lion with him on his ship. They are able to launch before the population awakes and announces its allegiance with Iney. With some quick thinking, Tikkirey connects Lion's brain to the datastream of the ship, temporarily turning him into a calculation module. The plan works, and Lion awakes shortly after. However, his free will is gone. Stas takes the boys to his homeplanet of Avalon, where the phages' headquarters are located. Tikkirey is hired by the phages to work in support role, while he takes care of Lion. Basically, Tikkirey is forced to tell Lion to do almost everything, hoping that he may one day get better. He also makes friends with his neighbors, a brother and a sister of a slightly younger age. One day, Tikkirey is asked by his supervisor to destroy a faulty plasma whip, which refuses to bond with any phage. To Tikkirey's surprise, the whip bonds to him, and he refuses to destroy the semi-living device. That same day, his neighbors invite him and Lion to go camping at a nearby lake. Since it is wintertime in that part of Avalon, the lake is frozen over. The teenagers (except for Lion) begin to ice skate, but ice cracks under Tikkirey, and he falls into the water. He attempts to get out by using the whip but to no avail. Surprisingly, Lion snaps out of his daze and saves Tikkirey. Stas arrives with paramedics and explains that the whip was a test of loyalty, which Tikkirey has failed. Tikkirey shows that the whip bonded to him, which surprises the phage, as this has never happened before. Tikkirey and Lion are taken to the phage headquarters, where Lion is given a clean bill of health by a psychiatrist. Lion explains that, during the time he was asleep, he has lived an entire lifetime as a citizen of Iney. The boys find out that the phages are planning on sending them back to New Kuwait to conduct an investigation as to how Iney is controlling the population.
Tikkirey and Lion are dropped in a pod made of a special form of ice, which melts on landing, leaving no trace. However, the boys are quickly captured by a team of girls armed with crossbow
s. They are escorted to their base camp, where Tikkirey encounters a disabled old man he met while escaping from New Kuwait. The girls are members of a former hip hop
dancing troupe who have become guerrilla fighters. They help the boys sneak into the city, where Lion is reunited with his family, who all behave like a stereotypical perfect TV family. Tikkirey and Lion are sent to a boarding school
"to learn to serve the society better." Everything appears to be going well, except that the boys know they are under surveillance. One night, the old man's daughter Natasha sneaks into their room and informs them that Iney counter-intelligence
is following their every move. They decide to escape and hide in a school located in a poor district. They are able, for a time, to remain undetected by the Iney. Once, however, Natasha introduces Tikkirey to another girl, who claims to also be an agent for the phages. She informs Tikkirey that a wealthy Imperial industrialist has arrived on New Kuwait and that he is secretly working with Iney against the Empire. The girl orders Tikkirey to execute the industrialist and his teenage daughter. While morally disagreeing with the girl, Tikkirey decides to go through with it. Tikkirey, Lion, and Natasha sneak into the villa where the industrialist is being treated as an honored guest. However, upon attempting to ambush the man and his daughter, Tikkirey is surprised to learn that the industrialist is, in fact, Stas in disguise. His "daughter" is a young phage-in-training dressed as a girl. The real industrialist has been detained by the Imperial forces, and the phages have been sent in their stead. Stas immediately realizes that the girl who gave the execution order is an Iney agent, which means that their cover is blown. He decides to attempt to smuggle Tikkirey, Lion, and Natasha from New Kuwait in suitcases. There is one problem, however — due to a quirk of nature, FTL travel is lethal to human females (the reasoning behind this is not explained, although it is mentioned that a Y-chromosome is necessary to survive an FTL jump). As such, Natasha must be placed into a cryogenic
pod. Due to the shortage of space on the luxury transport, the dock workers decide to leave Tikkirey's suitcase in storage to be sent with the next ship. An old female dockworker decides to look inside and finds the boy. Instead of reporting him, however, the old lady feeds him and asks him to tell her what is happening. After hearing his story, Tikkirey asks her to contact Stas and tell him to freeze Natasha. When she comes back, the lady begins to explain certain unknown facts to Tikkirey. She explains that the president of Iney, a woman by the name of Inna Snow, is, in fact, a clone.
At one point in time, a genetic genius named Edward Garlitsky has decided to fundamentally alter humanity for the better. For this purpose, he cloned himself into a woman named Ada Snezhinskaya, but their views on the means of achieving the change were radically different: Edward wanted to act behind-the-scenes (according to the novel Genome, he became the father of specification), while Ada wanted to directly alter the current social and political structure of the Empire. For that purpose, Ada created thousands of clones of herself and of Edward and spread them throughout the Empire (at that time, it was common practice for parents to buy fetuses). The first names of the female clones were always four letters long with a double consonant in the middle, while the last name was in some way related to snow (e.g. Inna Snow, Anna Neige). Sooner or later, most of the clones were tracked down and offered to have the collective memory of the clones imprinted on them. Most agreed. They all began to set themselves up in certain key political positions. Eventually, Inna Snow discovered a way of using neuroshunts to slowly download a dormant program into people's brains. A certain signal would then trigger the program, which would allow the affected people to live out entire lifetimes in their heads. While each person's "dream life" was different, several constants remained the same: Inna Snow and Iney are good, the Empire and the Emperor are bad. The medium for implanting the program was chosen to be the many TV series produced on Iney and watched throughout the Empire. After hearing this, Tikkirey realizes that the old lady is Ada Snezhinskaya, who reveals that Tikkirey Frost is himself a clone of Edward Garlitsky.
Despite this realization, Tikkirey attempts to kill Ada with a whip, but he only wounds her and gets captured by Iney forces. Finding himself in a prison cell with Stas, the phage-in-training, Lion, Natasha, and her grandfather, Tikkirey questions Stas and finds out that Stas knew about him being a clone. The group is then taken to a factory to meet Ada and Inna, where, after a verbal joust, Stas reveals that the Empire has begun a massive invasion of all Iney-occupied worlds, using a modified version of Inna Snow's program to remove Iney's propaganda from the affected people's minds. In a last-ditch effort to save herself and her plan, Ada uses the imperative voice to order Tikkirey and Natasha to jump off the catwalk into a pool of strong solvent. Natasha's grandfather sacrifices himself to save his granddaughter and push both Ada and Inna off the catwalk. Stas uses his own imperative voice to override Ada's order and frees the teenagers.
With the threat of Iney gone and the clones in custody, Stas offers to take Tikkirey back to Avalon. However, Tikkirey first makes a stop at Quarry to get two of his friends off that rock. As a side note, he mentions that a genetic cure has been found to allow women to safely traverse FTL hyperchannels without the use of cryogenics.
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n sci-fi and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
writer Sergey Lukyanenko
Sergey Lukyanenko
Sergei Vasilievich Lukyanenko is a science fiction and fantasy author, writing in Russian, and is arguably the most popular contemporary Russian sci-fi writer...
. Despite the fact that the novel was written later, it is considered to be an indirect prequel
Prequel
A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...
to the novel Genome
Genome (novel)
Genome is a science fiction/detective novel by the popular Russian sci-fi writer Sergei Lukyanenko. The novel began a series also called Genome, consisting of Dances on the Snow and Cripples...
. It takes place in the same fictional universe as Genome, about one hundred years prior to the novel's time frame. Unlike Genome, Dances on the Snow hardly deals with the issue of genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
but does touch on the issue of cloning
Cloning
Cloning in biology is the process of producing similar populations of genetically identical individuals that occurs in nature when organisms such as bacteria, insects or plants reproduce asexually. Cloning in biotechnology refers to processes used to create copies of DNA fragments , cells , or...
. However, the biggest focus is the problems of free choice and mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
.
Plot
Tikkirey "Tiki" Frost lives on the planet Quarry, poorly adapted for human life and stricken with poverty. Due to the planet's high radioactivity, the inhabitants of Quarry are forced to live in a protective dome and pay for food and air, or "social support". UnemploymentUnemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
is a major problem on Quarry. In fact, one's ability to obtain a job depends on the quality of his or her neuroshunt implant, allowing direct mind-to-machine connection. Tikkirey's parents' neuroshunts have become obsolete and they have no money for an upgrade. His father has been unemployed for years, and his mother makes a pittance. Incapable of paying for their social support, Tikkirey's parents are forced to invoke their "constitutional right to commit suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
." For that, Tikkirey's social support is extended by 7 years, during which he can get education and find a job, as his neuroshunt is above the local standard. If his parents forgo their "constitutional right", the entire family will be evicted from the Dome. The life expectancy outside the Dome is 1-2 years.
After losing his parents, Tikkirey decides to leave Quarry by any means necessary. As such, he signs up on an interstellar ore transport as a "calculation module" — a wetware
Wetware
Wetware may refer to:* Wetware , brain* Wetware , biological tools and parts* Wetware , a 1988 Rudy Rucker biopunk novel* Wetware , a 2000 album by The Cassandra Complex...
computer used for complex calculations at faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
speeds, as normal computers fail to work. A calculation module remains in hibernation, most of the time, while a stream of data is shunted through his brain. While this is a highly paid position, continuous misuse of the brain atrophies the frontal lobe
Frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is an area in the brain of humans and other mammals, located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere and positioned anterior to the parietal lobe and superior and anterior to the temporal lobes...
, causing the person to lose his free will. After the expiration of the standard five-year contract, 97% of calculation modules are incapable of making their own decisions and continue flying for the rest of their lives. The other 3% manage to muster enough willpower to leave the ship (2%) or cancel the contract before time is up (1%); however, even they have to spend years relearning to make even the simplest decisions (e.g. a simple choice of soft drink
Soft drink
A soft drink is a non-alcoholic beverage that typically contains water , a sweetener, and a flavoring agent...
is an extremely difficult process for them).
After regaining consciousness on the beautiful and wealthy planet of New Kuwait
Kuwait
The State of Kuwait is a sovereign Arab state situated in the north-east of the Arabian Peninsula in Western Asia. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the south at Khafji, and Iraq to the north at Basra. It lies on the north-western shore of the Persian Gulf. The name Kuwait is derived from the...
, Tikkirey demands to cancel his contract and leave the ship. He immediately finds out that a clause in the contract prevents him from doing just that, as he must pay off his 150,000 credit insurance policy, which will require Tikkirey to serve another 1.5 years on the ship. The contract is specifically written to prevent calculation modules from using ships as free rides. Fortunately, Tikkirey finds out that the crew took pity on the boy and broke the law by not getting him an insurance policy. He receives his earned credits and leaves the ship. He then takes a taxi
Taxicab
A taxicab, also taxi or cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice...
and gets a room at a cheap hotel. He then hits another snag: his money will only last him about a week. New Kuwait's laws require local permanent residency
Permanent residency
Permanent residency refers to a person's visa status: the person is allowed to reside indefinitely within a country of which he or she is not a citizen. A person with such status is known as a permanent resident....
for employment, but the process of obtaining it takes at least six months.
At the hotel, Tikkirey meets Lion, a boy his age, who was born and grew up on a space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
. The next day, Tikkirey encounters and befriends a mysterious man named Captain Stas, who turns out to be a phage from the planet Avalon. Phages are knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
-like members of an organization whose goal is to rid the Empire of its enemies. Unlike the rational humans around them, phages are encouraged to listen with their hearts. A phage is genetically engineered to be stronger and faster than any normal human. He is capable of using something called an "imperative voice", causing most humans to follow his instructions without question (similar to the Voice from Frank Herbert
Frank Herbert
Franklin Patrick Herbert, Jr. was a critically acclaimed and commercially successful American science fiction author. Although a short story author, he is best known for his novels, most notably Dune and its five sequels...
's novel Dune
Dune (novel)
Dune is a science fiction novel written by Frank Herbert, published in 1965. It won the Hugo Award in 1966, and the inaugural Nebula Award for Best Novel...
). A phage's weapon of choice is a multi-functional semi-intelligent plasma
Plasma (physics)
In physics and chemistry, plasma is a state of matter similar to gas in which a certain portion of the particles are ionized. Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms , thus turning it into a plasma, which contains charged particles: positive ions and negative electrons or ions...
whip, chosen not for its deadliness but for its psychological effect. The phages' mission, abilities, and moral code have earned them the nickname "jedi
Jedi
The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series's main protagonists. The Jedi use a power called the Force and weapons called lightsabers, which emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, in order to serve and protect the Republic and the galaxy at large from conflict...
", which they tend to dislike, as it trivializes the phages' purpose.
Stas is on a mission to investigate the suspicious activity on New Kuwait of agents from the planet Iney ("frost" in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
). Iney has already "peacefully" allied with several other Imperial worlds and is gaining in strength, threatening the stability of the Empire. Before Stas or Tikkirey can do anything, most of the population of New Kuwait suddenly falls asleep. Tikkirey and Stas are one of the few still awake. Stas takes the boy and, at Tikkirey's request, the unconscious Lion with him on his ship. They are able to launch before the population awakes and announces its allegiance with Iney. With some quick thinking, Tikkirey connects Lion's brain to the datastream of the ship, temporarily turning him into a calculation module. The plan works, and Lion awakes shortly after. However, his free will is gone. Stas takes the boys to his homeplanet of Avalon, where the phages' headquarters are located. Tikkirey is hired by the phages to work in support role, while he takes care of Lion. Basically, Tikkirey is forced to tell Lion to do almost everything, hoping that he may one day get better. He also makes friends with his neighbors, a brother and a sister of a slightly younger age. One day, Tikkirey is asked by his supervisor to destroy a faulty plasma whip, which refuses to bond with any phage. To Tikkirey's surprise, the whip bonds to him, and he refuses to destroy the semi-living device. That same day, his neighbors invite him and Lion to go camping at a nearby lake. Since it is wintertime in that part of Avalon, the lake is frozen over. The teenagers (except for Lion) begin to ice skate, but ice cracks under Tikkirey, and he falls into the water. He attempts to get out by using the whip but to no avail. Surprisingly, Lion snaps out of his daze and saves Tikkirey. Stas arrives with paramedics and explains that the whip was a test of loyalty, which Tikkirey has failed. Tikkirey shows that the whip bonded to him, which surprises the phage, as this has never happened before. Tikkirey and Lion are taken to the phage headquarters, where Lion is given a clean bill of health by a psychiatrist. Lion explains that, during the time he was asleep, he has lived an entire lifetime as a citizen of Iney. The boys find out that the phages are planning on sending them back to New Kuwait to conduct an investigation as to how Iney is controlling the population.
Tikkirey and Lion are dropped in a pod made of a special form of ice, which melts on landing, leaving no trace. However, the boys are quickly captured by a team of girls armed with crossbow
Crossbow
A crossbow is a weapon consisting of a bow mounted on a stock that shoots projectiles, often called bolts or quarrels. The medieval crossbow was called by many names, most of which derived from the word ballista, a torsion engine resembling a crossbow in appearance.Historically, crossbows played a...
s. They are escorted to their base camp, where Tikkirey encounters a disabled old man he met while escaping from New Kuwait. The girls are members of a former hip hop
Hip hop
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
dancing troupe who have become guerrilla fighters. They help the boys sneak into the city, where Lion is reunited with his family, who all behave like a stereotypical perfect TV family. Tikkirey and Lion are sent to a boarding school
Boarding school
A boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
"to learn to serve the society better." Everything appears to be going well, except that the boys know they are under surveillance. One night, the old man's daughter Natasha sneaks into their room and informs them that Iney counter-intelligence
Counter-intelligence
Counterintelligence or counter-intelligence refers to efforts made by intelligence organizations to prevent hostile or enemy intelligence organizations from successfully gathering and collecting intelligence against them. National intelligence programs, and, by extension, the overall defenses of...
is following their every move. They decide to escape and hide in a school located in a poor district. They are able, for a time, to remain undetected by the Iney. Once, however, Natasha introduces Tikkirey to another girl, who claims to also be an agent for the phages. She informs Tikkirey that a wealthy Imperial industrialist has arrived on New Kuwait and that he is secretly working with Iney against the Empire. The girl orders Tikkirey to execute the industrialist and his teenage daughter. While morally disagreeing with the girl, Tikkirey decides to go through with it. Tikkirey, Lion, and Natasha sneak into the villa where the industrialist is being treated as an honored guest. However, upon attempting to ambush the man and his daughter, Tikkirey is surprised to learn that the industrialist is, in fact, Stas in disguise. His "daughter" is a young phage-in-training dressed as a girl. The real industrialist has been detained by the Imperial forces, and the phages have been sent in their stead. Stas immediately realizes that the girl who gave the execution order is an Iney agent, which means that their cover is blown. He decides to attempt to smuggle Tikkirey, Lion, and Natasha from New Kuwait in suitcases. There is one problem, however — due to a quirk of nature, FTL travel is lethal to human females (the reasoning behind this is not explained, although it is mentioned that a Y-chromosome is necessary to survive an FTL jump). As such, Natasha must be placed into a cryogenic
Cryogenics
In physics, cryogenics is the study of the production of very low temperature and the behavior of materials at those temperatures. A person who studies elements under extremely cold temperature is called a cryogenicist. Rather than the relative temperature scales of Celsius and Fahrenheit,...
pod. Due to the shortage of space on the luxury transport, the dock workers decide to leave Tikkirey's suitcase in storage to be sent with the next ship. An old female dockworker decides to look inside and finds the boy. Instead of reporting him, however, the old lady feeds him and asks him to tell her what is happening. After hearing his story, Tikkirey asks her to contact Stas and tell him to freeze Natasha. When she comes back, the lady begins to explain certain unknown facts to Tikkirey. She explains that the president of Iney, a woman by the name of Inna Snow, is, in fact, a clone.
At one point in time, a genetic genius named Edward Garlitsky has decided to fundamentally alter humanity for the better. For this purpose, he cloned himself into a woman named Ada Snezhinskaya, but their views on the means of achieving the change were radically different: Edward wanted to act behind-the-scenes (according to the novel Genome, he became the father of specification), while Ada wanted to directly alter the current social and political structure of the Empire. For that purpose, Ada created thousands of clones of herself and of Edward and spread them throughout the Empire (at that time, it was common practice for parents to buy fetuses). The first names of the female clones were always four letters long with a double consonant in the middle, while the last name was in some way related to snow (e.g. Inna Snow, Anna Neige). Sooner or later, most of the clones were tracked down and offered to have the collective memory of the clones imprinted on them. Most agreed. They all began to set themselves up in certain key political positions. Eventually, Inna Snow discovered a way of using neuroshunts to slowly download a dormant program into people's brains. A certain signal would then trigger the program, which would allow the affected people to live out entire lifetimes in their heads. While each person's "dream life" was different, several constants remained the same: Inna Snow and Iney are good, the Empire and the Emperor are bad. The medium for implanting the program was chosen to be the many TV series produced on Iney and watched throughout the Empire. After hearing this, Tikkirey realizes that the old lady is Ada Snezhinskaya, who reveals that Tikkirey Frost is himself a clone of Edward Garlitsky.
Despite this realization, Tikkirey attempts to kill Ada with a whip, but he only wounds her and gets captured by Iney forces. Finding himself in a prison cell with Stas, the phage-in-training, Lion, Natasha, and her grandfather, Tikkirey questions Stas and finds out that Stas knew about him being a clone. The group is then taken to a factory to meet Ada and Inna, where, after a verbal joust, Stas reveals that the Empire has begun a massive invasion of all Iney-occupied worlds, using a modified version of Inna Snow's program to remove Iney's propaganda from the affected people's minds. In a last-ditch effort to save herself and her plan, Ada uses the imperative voice to order Tikkirey and Natasha to jump off the catwalk into a pool of strong solvent. Natasha's grandfather sacrifices himself to save his granddaughter and push both Ada and Inna off the catwalk. Stas uses his own imperative voice to override Ada's order and frees the teenagers.
With the threat of Iney gone and the clones in custody, Stas offers to take Tikkirey back to Avalon. However, Tikkirey first makes a stop at Quarry to get two of his friends off that rock. As a side note, he mentions that a genetic cure has been found to allow women to safely traverse FTL hyperchannels without the use of cryogenics.