 Into this already perilous situation came a new dire threat - some kind of mysterious force destroying the ships one by one.The book's main protagonist, the courageous woman Captain of the ship Beta-2, heard a desperate plea for help from another ship and went to help.There she discovered that the destruction was caused by a mysterious being living in deep space, and that its destructive acts were not deliberate malice but miscalculated efforts to communicate with humans, who were completely beyond all its experience.