Kir Bulychev’s "Aliens," a summary Automatic translate

This 1984 science fiction novel describes contact between earthlings and alien intelligences, set against the backdrop of Soviet everyday life. The most striking detail of the text is the psychological precision of society’s reaction to inexplicable goodness: ordinary people are much more willing to believe in a hostile invasion than in a selfless desire to bring joy.

Arrival on Earth

Fourteen-year-old Donat Pronkin, known to his family as Donik, has a sober, scientific mind. The boy disbelieves in mysticism, reveres the freethinkers of the eighteenth century, and ridicules his exalted older sister, Katya. Katya firmly believes in television psychics and awaits the arrival of space saviors who will ban atomic bombs. On Wednesday evenings, around ten o’clock, Donik goes out to walk his cat, Barbos. The cat has been raised according to strict dog rules since puppyhood.

They are in a neglected park on the opposite side of 4th Okhotnichnaya Street. Suddenly, the enormous dark body of an alien ship descends from the sky, completely silent. A thin green beam breaks the silence of the night city. The hatches open, and tiny insect-like creatures scurry out in a dense wave. The aliens are gripped by an animalistic fear. Barbos, terrified, climbs up Donik’s clothes and onto his shoulder, claws unsheathed.

Moments later, the entire ship’s mass implodes. The ship disappears in a flash of blinding, glittering darkness. The surviving aliens scatter silently across the grass of the park. A random car drives down the street, shattering the magic of the moment. Donik realizes his new status as the sole keeper of the secret of a real alien invasion.

Strange metamorphoses

The boy returns to a pre-war wooden barracks. His family lives in this building: his mother, Vera, his sister, Katya, and his well-read grandmother, Lidiya Sergeyevna. The apartment is communal, inhabited by a saleswoman, Salima, and an asthmatic, cautious accountant, Lev Abramovich. Donik locks himself behind a plywood partition and carefully examines the body in the sitz bath. The boy fears that aliens have hidden in the folds of his clothing. In the morning, material anomalies begin.

Katya discovers a second box of scarce blue shoes under her bed. A little later, the shoes multiply before her eyes, frightening her. Her sister’s black hand also duplicates itself, creating confusion. On her way home from school, Donik observes his neighbors, the elderly Volkov sisters. The women are arguing in the middle of the courtyard over a dog they found, Nellie. The sisters argue about the animal’s original muzzle color. The dog’s fur changes color as they cry, obediently adapting to their owners’ wishes.

That evening, the material oddities continue with renewed vigor. Grandma acquires three rare skeins of blue wool. A forest hedgehog leisurely wanders into the second-floor room, followed by Barbos the cat, enchanted. Donik carries the hedgehog back into the bushes of the park and notices a squirrel following it. When they try to approach, the animals vanish into thin air with a soft click.

The young man finally formulates a hypothesis about the creatures’ behavior. The tiny aliens possess an absolute capacity for mimicry. They secretly infiltrate everyday life. The creatures voluntarily take the form of objects and animals that specific people need to experience joy.

The Apollo Experiment

Donik tries to call his classmate Rina from a payphone to share a secret, but the machine eats his coin. Nearby, the boy encounters an elderly drunkard he knows, nicknamed Apollo-Soyuz. The man is in a state of religious ecstasy. He explains that he was about to drown himself out of despair, took off his shoes, but then unexpectedly found sealed bottles of premium vodka in the inside pockets of his jacket.

Donik patiently explains to Apollo the hypothesis about aliens taking the form of desired objects. The drunk is skeptical and suspects sleepwalking. The teenager suggests a cruel scientific experiment: smashing both full bottles on the pavement. Apollo performs a strange dance, shouts patriotic slogans, and shatters the glass with a single blow. The alcoholic falls to the wet ground, sobbing and trying to lick the alcohol out of a puddle.

A moment later, new, perfectly intact crystal bottles appear on the pavement nearby. The experiment brilliantly confirms the boy’s correctness. The aliens are sensitive to human grief and instantly compensate for the loss with new gifts. Apollo rips the tin cap off with his teeth and greedily drinks the liquor straight from the bottle. Donik goes home, contemplating the peaceful motives of the space marines.

Revolt of the Philistines

The peaceful life of the communal apartment collapses late one evening. An enraged crowd of drunks from the liquor store bursts into the hallway, led by Apollo-Soyuz. The man’s face has taken on a poisonous greenish tint. Apollo has been severely poisoned by the imitation vodka, which the aliens, ignorant of the drink’s chemical composition, had faithfully imitated. The drunkard loudly accuses Donik of conspiring with the occupiers and calls for the extermination of the invaders. The neighbors flee their rooms in fear.

The drunken leader vividly demonstrates the method of combat he’s discovered. It turns out that aliens are incapable of surviving targeted human hatred. Apollo picks up a translated Gordon-Smith physics book from the table, recently given to Donik by the aliens. He directs all his anger at the object. The book instantly disappears with a loud pop. A translucent sphere the size of a small ladybug falls to the floor.

A tiny, defenseless creature tries to escape, quickly transforming into a bottle of vodka. Apollo catches the ball with a laugh and mercilessly crushes it with his dirty nails. Warm pink liquid squeaks out of the body. Feeling completely unpunished, the crowd begins searching everywhere for disguised enemies. Apollo aggressively accuses Lev Abramovich of Zionist espionage because of the new Japanese watch on his wrist.

The accountant is forced to publicly hate the chronometer, and the expensive watch disappears. Then the leader’s drunken gaze catches sight of a beautiful earring in Katya’s ear. Apollon roughly rips the jewelry off, flesh and all. The girl screams in sharp pain, blood gushing from the torn earlobe. Donik, with a desperate cry, lunges at the sadist with his fists, but receives a professional knee to the solar plexus and collapses into the arms of his neighbor.

Grandmother’s intervention

The bloody massacre is stopped by Lidiya Sergeyevna. A frail old woman slowly emerges into the cramped corridor, a huge blued pistol in her trembling hands. Quietly, but with incredible authority, she orders the crowd to leave immediately. The aggressors quickly lose their courage and, in a humiliating panic, rush down the steep wooden stairs, knocking each other over.

Once the immediate danger has completely passed, the combat pistol in the grandmother’s hands seamlessly transforms into an ordinary wire fly swatter. The alien deliberately assumed the form of its most formidable weapon in order to desperately protect the elderly woman. Lev Abramovich draws a grim analytical conclusion to the night’s events.

Salima’s neighbor shrieks and loses her new blouse, fearing accusations of harboring saboteurs. The accountant says, "You and I don’t know who’s more frightening to us — our own anti-spy fighters or these spies." The man warns of the dire consequences of mass psychosis. Soviet people have historically been willing to look for enemies in their own belongings, just to justify their unmotivated internal aggression.

Donik retreats into a small, dark room and silently stares out the window. A brutal tragedy unfolds on the dimly lit street. An enraged crowd has formed a tight circle around the defenseless Volkov sisters. The enraged neighbors mercilessly trample two small, fluffy dogs. With a soft click, the animals vanish forever into the night air.

Evacuation

The teenager realizes the monstrous scale of the disaster. The aliens desperately need sympathy, love, and harmony. Ordinary earthly malice physically destroys their nervous systems. Donik’s mother also succumbs to the general panic, selfishly calling for the house to be cleared of all suspicious gifts for the sake of the children’s abstract safety. Left alone, Donik addresses himself directly into the darkness of the cramped room.

The boy asks the invisible, frightened guests aloud about their true nature. The room silently responds with complete agreement to his insights about the necessity of happiness for the physical survival of an entire species. The young man makes the only correct, radical decision. He asks Lidiya Sergeyevna for money for the late-night train ride.

Donik plans to secretly take the surviving aliens to the suburban town of Pushkino. Aunt Dusya lives quietly there, owning a large, gated, and secure plot of land. The wise grandmother fully approves of the daring rescue plan and gives her grandson thirty rubles for an unexpected taxi ride. Donik sternly calls his cat Barbos and heads out onto the dangerous street.

The boy walks purposefully toward the dark suburban platform. A huge, unnatural flock of diurnal birds — sparrows, swallows, and tits — circles silently above the teenager’s head. Ten identical, furry Barbos dogs trot leisurely along the cold asphalt behind Donik. The persecuted aliens have entrusted their fragile lives completely to the one earthling who has shown genuine, active compassion.