The story takes place in Leningrad, USSR, apparently in the 1970s.The protagonist, Dmitry Alekseyevich Malyanov is an astrophysicist who realizes that he is on the verge of a revolutionary discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize. But then bizarre events start to disrupt his work, which include mysterious visitors, unexplained gifts, and a neighbor's death that implicates him in a murder. Malyanov and his peers realize a mysterious force is sabotaging their scientific pursuits across various fields. Mathematician Vecherovsky theorizes this as the Universe's homeostatic resistance to prevent advanced civilizations from destabilizing its equilibrium. Under mounting pressure, most abandon their research, leaving Vecherovsky to confront the cosmic resistance alone.
