Clifford Simack (19041988) was one of the few American science fiction writers to be awarded the title of "Great Master" by his colleagues. Isaac Asimov admitted that he always dreamed of learning to write like Simak ...Suddenly, almost all people disappeared from the Earth. Only a hundred people remained who had acquired the ability to live a very long life, abandoned religion and technological civilization, discovered the ability to telepathy at any distance and travel to any point in space. Robots, on the contrary, became religious and engaged in the construction of a car - super robot The project can communicate with the Principle, a kind of supermind at the center of the galaxy. Disappeared people were transferred to three other planets in the center of the Galaxy and revived a technological civilization there. Five thousand years later, they flew to Earth to study the parapsychological abilities of earthlings. Earthlings refused, and the Principle through the Project advised them to leave the Earth alone, t. k. The entire population is part of an experiment.... The acquisition of people’s parapsychological abilities is achieved by abandoning machines and technologies.