"The Road to Amalthea" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, summary

The book is a collection of science fiction stories written in 1959 and published separately in 1960. Written at the turn of the Soviet science fiction era, this work first demonstrated the co-authors’ restrained, dynamic style, focused on human psychology and professional ethics. The title story is part of a cycle about the conquest of space and the world of Noon, known as the story of Captain Alexei Bykov and his comrades. Plot-wise, it continues the 1959 book "The Land of Crimson Clouds" and precedes the 1962 work "The Interns."

The story "The Road to Amalthea"

The Amalthea disaster and the Tahmasib flight

The J-Station research station on Jupiter’s moon Amalthea is in dire straits. A fungal outbreak on neighboring Callisto has completely destroyed food stores and chlorella plantations. Amalthea has shared its own food with its neighbors and is itself on the brink of starvation. The station’s director and chef, Valnoga, are anxiously awaiting the arrival of the photon freighter Tahmasib, which is carrying supplies from Earth. Radio contact with the ship was lost sixty hours ago.

The photon freighter is piloted by Captain Alexei Bykov. On board are experienced navigator Mikhail Krutikov, young flight engineer Ivan Zhilin, and passengers — planetologists Vladimir Yurkovsky and Grigory Dauge, and French radio optician Charles Mollard. The flight is proceeding in a tense "oversun" mode — directly through the solar neighborhood — leaving the crew exhausted, and the first layer of mesomatter has already burned off the parabolic reflector of the photon engine. In their cabins, the planetologists are eagerly searching for Varechka, an escaped Martian lizard capable of mimicry.

As it approaches Jupiter, the Tahmasib passes near the giant’s exosphere to drop scientific bomb probes. Suddenly, the ship encounters a dense swarm of micrometeorites, uncharted. The automated anti-meteorite defense system begins tossing the cargo ship from side to side. At that moment, Varechka the lizard leaps onto the control panel and mimics the keys and warning lights. In the ensuing chaos, a large meteorite destroys the edge of the photonic reflector. The automated defense system locks the engine, the Tahmasib suddenly loses speed, and begins to plunge into Jupiter’s hydrogen atmosphere.

Falling into the hydrogen abyss

The crew is injured by the violent impacts and the braking by the emergency rockets. Yurkovsky suffers a severe electric shock, temporarily loses the ability to speak normally, and begins to stutter. The power of the emergency hydrogen rockets is insufficient to overcome Jupiter’s enormous gravitational pull. Captain Bykov switches the ship to maximum braking mode, preventing a burnup in the upper layers, but the Tahmasib continues to descend.

Navigator Krutikov calculates the trajectory and discovers that the ship will fall to a depth of six to seven megameters. There, Tahmasib will hang suspended by the colossal atmospheric density, with a gravity of approximately two and a half Ge. Deep in Jupiter’s depths, planetary scientists observe unexplored physical phenomena through periscopes: the uniform pink glow of metallic hydrogen, enormous iridescent gas bubbles kilometers across, double optical mirages of their own spacecraft, and floating rock fragments. Yurkovsky calls this cluster of asteroids swallowed by the planet a "graveyard of worlds."

Mortal risk and rescue

Captain Bykov refuses to passively await death. Together with Zhilin, they don spacesuits, descend the elevator shaft to the destroyed reflector, and assess the damage. Bykov decides to reprogram the photoreactor’s magnetic traps. By shifting the combustion point of the deuterium-tritium plasma, he hopes to compensate for the damaged edge of the mirror and generate the necessary thrust with the weakened engine.

The risk is extremely high: a shift in the plasma focus could trigger a detonation of compressed hydrogen around the ship or permanently destroy the reflector. Bykov orders the passengers and crew to lie down in the shock absorbers. The captain himself remains at the controls, manually piloting the ship under eight-fold overload. The activated photoreactor withstands the load, and the Tahmasib breaks free of Jupiter’s gravity well. The heavily damaged spacecraft lands safely on Amalthea and delivers the long-awaited supplies.

The story "Almost the Same"

Everyday life at the Higher School of Cosmogation

Navigator Faculty cadets Kolya Ermakov and Borya Panin are waiting to be called to practice in the "Big Centrifuge" gym. Second-year class monitor Grisha Bystrov tells his friends about the cadets’ latest prank: someone programmed a humorous love letter into the new LIANTO computer, causing the machine to emit a rhyming greeting during important calculations by Faculty Head Todor Kan.

Kolya Ermakov is depressed. His doctor has prohibited him from exerting more than five times the standard G-force for two months. Ermakov is striving to master eight and ten times the standard G-force, believing this to be necessary preparation for long-distance space missions, and is concerned about losing his physical fitness.

Debates over the future of star expeditions

The cadets stroll through the school park, meeting girls from the Remote Control Department and discussing the upcoming launch of the world’s first ramjet photon ship, Khius-Molniya, on the First Interstellar Expedition, led by Vasily Lyakhov. A heated theoretical debate erupts among the seniors on the lawn.

Boris Panin expresses doubts about the practical benefits of flights to distant stars, citing the inevitable relativistic time lag with Earth and the risk of obsolescence of the data obtained. Cadet Malyshev and Kolya Ermakov counter this, arguing that the essence of humanity lies in an insatiable thirst for understanding the world around us. After their argument, Ermakov goes to his classmate Valya Petrov to study theoretical physics together and prepare for future interstellar flights.

The story "Night on Mars"

Accident in the desert

Doctors Petr Novago and Lazar Mandel are rushing in a light crawler called "Lizard" to the biostation plantations, where Irina Slavina is scheduled to give birth for the first time on Mars. Forty kilometers from the base, the vehicle falls into an unsecured underground cavern of hot water and sinks. The doctors manage to scramble onto firm sand and salvage a bag containing surgical instruments.

There are thirty kilometers left to the biostation, crossing the Martian desert at night. The temperature is plummeting, and there are no more vehicles. Novago and Mandel don oxygen masks, grab their pistols, and set out on foot across the freezing sand.

Meeting with the trackers and the attack of the predator

Along the way, the medics encounter pathfinders Fyodor Opanasenko and Humphrey Morgan. It turns out Morgan has damaged his hearing aid in his spacesuit and is deaf. The pathfinders warn the medics of mortal danger: tracks of a "flying leech" — a dangerous nocturnal predator that always attacks people from the right — have been detected in the area.

Opanasenko and Morgan take the medics under their protection. Soon, the predator actually attacks, darting out from the darkness of the dunes. The trackers open fire with heavy automatic carbines and explosive bullets, while Mandel unloads his pistol. Together, they manage to repel the attack and force the creature to retreat. By midnight, the group safely arrives at the biological station.

The story "Emergency Incident"

Unknown organism on board

The photon freighter is returning from Titan to Earth with a cargo of erbium. On board are a crew led by Captain Konstantin Stankevich and biologist Malyshev. Navigator Viktor Borisovich accidentally discovers an unusual black fly with eight legs in the cabin, which emits a buzzing sound similar to a bumblebee.

It soon becomes apparent that the ship is rapidly infested with hundreds of similar insects. The standard chemical pest control system, "Letal," proves useless. Biologist Malyshev discovers that these creatures lack a protein structure and are spores of non-biological life brought from outer space. When attempting to crush or poison a fly, every cell in its body generates dozens of new tiny individuals.

Vacuum cleaning

The insects reproduce exponentially, actively absorbing oxygen and nitrogen from the ship’s atmosphere to build their own bodies. The loss of gas causes the ship’s pressure to drop. Captain Stankevich makes a radical decision: the crew dons vacuum suits, the compartments are filled with compressed hydrogen, and the cargo hatches open to outer space.

After flushing the compartments five times with compressed gas and blowing the insects into a vacuum, the ship is completely clean. Biologist Malyshev manages to preserve several specimens in a sealed box, proving to the crew that non-protein life, harmless to humans, is of great scientific interest and can serve as a source of valuable raw materials.