2141 year. Humanity on Earth has not yet recovered from Clodis disease, which led to the largest pandemic in half a century, when a new pathogen appears that infects exclusively pregnant women. A group of immunological scientists is trying to find out what it is and whether its appearance is related to the neutrino flares recorded around the planet. The population of the Martian Colonies exceeds one hundred thousand inhabitants, and a third of them were born on Mars. They lose out to super-specialists from Earth in the race for jobs in the knowledge-intensive economy of Mars and are forced to work like slaves in low-skilled manual jobs. The more they come of age, the more they yearn for change, not realizing that these changes threaten the very existence of the Colonies.