The Earth is dying, and only the colonization of near space gives humanity a chance for salvation. Five centuries ago, people descended into the dangerous depths of Mars to extract the precious helium-3 needed to terraform the planet. This caste, calling itself the scarlet, believes that its feat will not be in vain and its descendants will live above, as in paradise. One day Darrow finds out that none of this is true. The surface of Mars has long been landscaped; several generations of the golden caste have already replaced it. This fact is carefully hidden from the scarlet ones, whom the golden ones consider to be brainless worker ants, doomed to be born and die in underground hard labor in order to provide a comfortable existence for the “supermans.” With the help of a group of conspirators, a young miner makes his way to the top, intending to destroy the power of the oppressors from within...For the first time in Russian!