Dances on the Snow is a science fiction novel written by the Russian sci-fi and fantasy writer Sergey Lukyanenko.

Tikkirey "Tiki" Frost lives on the planet Quarry, poorly adapted for human life and stricken with poverty.

Due to the planet's high radioactivity, the inhabitants of Quarry are forced to live in a protective dome and pay for food and air, or "social support".

In fact, one's ability to obtain a job depends on the quality of his or her neuroshunt implant, allowing direct mind-to-machine connection.

While this is a highly paid position, continuous misuse of the brain atrophies the frontal lobe, causing the person to lose his free will.

After the expiration of the standard five-year contract, 97% of calculation modules are incapable of making their own decisions and continue flying for the rest of their lives.

The other 3% manage to muster enough willpower to leave the ship (2%) or cancel the contract before time is up (1%); however, even they have to spend years relearning to make even the simplest decisions (e.g. a simple choice of soft drink is an extremely difficult process for them).

After regaining consciousness on the beautiful and wealthy planet of New Kuwait, Tikkirey demands to cancel his contract and leave the ship.

He immediately finds out that a clause in the contract prevents him from doing just that, as he must pay off his 150,000 credit insurance policy, which will require Tikkirey to serve another 1.5 years on the ship.

The next day, Tikkirey encounters and befriends a mysterious man named Captain Stas, who turns out to be a phage from the planet Avalon.

With some quick thinking, Tikkirey connects Lion's brain to the datastream of the ship, temporarily turning him into a calculation module.

The boys find out that the phages are planning on sending them back to New Kuwait to conduct an investigation as to how Iney is controlling the population.

Tikkirey and Lion are dropped in a pod made of a special form of ice, which melts on landing, leaving no trace.

Stas immediately realizes that the girl who gave the execution order is an Iney agent, which means that their cover is blown.

Due to the shortage of space on the luxury transport, the dock workers decide to leave Tikkirey's suitcase in storage to be sent with the next ship.

At one point in time, a genetic genius named Edward Garlitsky has decided to fundamentally alter humanity for the better.

For this purpose, he cloned himself into a woman named Ada Snezhinskaya, but their views on the means of achieving the change were radically different: Edward wanted to act behind-the-scenes (according to the novel Genome, he became the father of specification), while Ada wanted to directly alter the current social and political structure of the Empire.

For that purpose, Ada created thousands of clones of herself and of Edward and spread them throughout the Empire (at that time, it was common practice for parents to buy fetuses).

Eventually, Inna Snow discovered a way of using neuroshunts to slowly download a dormant program into people's brains.

While each person's "dream life" was different, several constants remained the same: Inna Snow and Iney are good, the Empire and the Emperor are bad.

In a last-ditch effort to save herself and her plan, Ada uses the imperative voice to order Tikkirey and Natasha to jump off the catwalk into a pool of strong solvent.

As a side note, he mentions that a genetic cure has been found to allow women to safely traverse FTL hyperchannels without the use of cryogenics.