"Dancing in the Snow" by Sergei Lukyanenko, summary Automatic translate

This book is a coming-of-age story about a teenager from a harsh world who finds himself at the center of an interplanetary conflict. Written between 1999 and 2001, the novel vividly depicts the transition from childhood naivety to an understanding of complex morality, where good and evil often intertwine. The boy faces betrayal, friendship, and difficult choices. Descriptions of space travel and high technology are closely intertwined with questions of humanity.

In 2002, the novel won the Alice Award at the Roscon convention for best children’s science fiction. It also won the Booker-Pervak award at the Bastcon conference. There have been no film adaptations of the work.

Escape from Planet Quarry

The action begins on the planet Quarry, a poor, domed industrial world with a polluted atmosphere. The parents of thirteen-year-old Tikkirey lose their jobs. They exercise their constitutional right to die. They pass on their remaining social security benefits to their son so that he can survive. Tikkirey is devastated by the loss of those closest to him. He decides to leave his homeland at any cost. To this end, he is hired as a "crew module" on the cargo spaceship Klyazma.

This work is destructive to the brain. A person is directly connected to a navigation computer to process enormous amounts of data in hyperspace. In exchange, he loses his willpower and emotions. Doctor Anton and the first mate try to dissuade the boy, but he remains adamant. After two jumps, Tikkirey realizes the full horror of such an existence and asks to terminate his contract. The Klyazma crew agrees. The boy is dropped off on the wealthy planet New Kuwait and given a portion of his earnings, sparing him from the enormous insurance payments.

Life in New Kuwait and the Frost Attack

On New Kuwait, Tikkirey is enjoying his long-awaited freedom. He rents a cheap motel room on the outskirts of the spaceport. Soon, he develops a severe allergic reaction to the local pollen. He mistakes the red rash for the deadly plague. In a panic, he turns to a random neighbor, Captain Stas, for help. He administers an immunomodulator injection and explains the mistake. Stas turns out to be a knight from the planet Avalon. Such people are called phages. They secretly protect the Empire from internal and external threats.

At the motel, Tikkirey meets his peer, Lyon. The boy arrived from the space station with his large family. They quickly become friends. Lyon talks a lot about his life in orbit and dreams of becoming a pilot. That night, Tikkirey notices a suspicious man sneaking up to the knight’s cottage. The boy warns Stas, who easily neutralizes the agent from the hostile planet.

At this moment, the Frost Federation treacherously attacks New Kuwait. The invaders use a psychotropic weapon of mass destruction. The coding signal is transmitted through neural shunts implanted in humans. The planet’s population falls asleep, only to awaken the next morning as loyal servants of President Inna Snow. The weapon has no effect on Tikkirey due to his old implant model lacking a radio module. Stas takes him and the deeply sleeping Lion aboard his small, maneuverable ship. To awaken his friend from his hypnotic trance, Tikkirey voluntarily connects to the ship’s computer network, sacrificing the safety of his own mind. The friends are safely rescued and arrive on Avalon.

A respite and rigorous training on Avalon

Tikkirey receives temporary resident status and gets a job at a phage weapons lab. There, a broken plasma scourge accidentally attaches itself to him. This deadly, quasi-living weapon, made of an alloy of metal and neural tissue, is intended only for knights. The boy saves the scourge from being scrapped and hides it. Lyon awakens after being coding. He falls into depression. It turns out that in an artificial dream, he lived his entire life beyond the Frost, fought, started a family, and grew old. The teenager remembers every detail of this fictional fate and loses interest in reality.

The friends go on a forest picnic with new school friends, twins Rosie and Rosi. During their walk, Tikkirey falls through the thin ice of a clear lake. Rosi panics and is afraid to approach the opening. Lyon summons his remaining willpower, crawls across the ice, and saves his friend. A plasma whip hidden under his clothes also helps. This extreme incident restores Lyon’s motivation.

The Phage leadership learns of Tikkiray’s hidden plasma scourge. Ramon, a high-ranking knight, offers a hard bargain. The boys are to return to New Kuwait on a reconnaissance mission. This is a unique situation — the scourge obeys only Phages whose genetics have been modified before birth. In exchange for their assistance, Tikkiray will officially retain the weapon. The Phages train the teenagers in virtual simulators. Then they are dropped from orbit in an invisible ice stealth capsule. Upon re-entry, the ice melts. The boys land safely in the forest, where they are immediately captured by vigilant female guerrillas.

Covert operations behind enemy lines

The "Lyutye" partisan detachment consists of trained young female gymnasts. They are commanded by an elderly man named Semetsky, who uses a wheelchair. Semetsky’s granddaughter, Natasha, ferries Tikkirey and Lion across the turbulent river to the outskirts of the capital, Agrabad, on a scooter. The friends visit Lion’s parents, who have become loyal citizens of Iney and are unnaturally cheerful. The parents send the boys to the prestigious boarding school "Pelakh." The college’s director, Alla Neydzhe, receives them with suspicious warmth.

Tikkirey discovers an electronic ambush at the college. The plasma scourge easily neutralizes the security cameras. That night, Natasha sneaks up to the boys. She reveals that local counterintelligence has been monitoring them for a long time. A mysterious girl, Ellie, from Avalon, transmits an order to kill the Eden oligarch Berman. He has allegedly secretly betrayed the Empire and is staying in a gated country mansion. The friends escape from the college and infiltrate the guarded house. There, they discover a stunning truth. Hiding behind the guise of the corpulent Berman and his daughter are the knight Stas and the young phage Alexander.

Stas burns frozen meat and clothes in the fireplace, faking the deaths of the attackers. The boys and Natasha are packed into luxury suitcases for shipment to the cosmodrome. Suddenly, plans change. Due to overload, the luggage is refused entry to the yacht’s cabin. The girl faces certain death in the cargo hold during the hyperspace jump. The loaders leave the suitcase with Tikkirey in the warehouse. The boy is freed by a kindly elderly worker, Ada. Suddenly, Tikkirey realizes a terrifying truth. The real Ada Snezhinskaya arrives at the mansion. She is the genetic basis for President Inna Snow. Alla Neige, Ellie, and all the rulers of Frost are merely clones of Snezhinskaya. Tikkirey discovers that he himself is also a clone, created from the genes of Ada’s male partner.

The final confrontation and the collapse of the conspiracy

Snezhinskaya invites Tikkirey to join the ruling elite of Frost. She promises him power and security. The boy declares that he refuses to be a copy of the tyrant and chooses his own path. He attacks his genetic "sister" with a plasma whip. The guards immediately paralyze the boy with beam blasts. The Fag, Lion, and Natasha are also captured. The rebels take everyone to an industrial workshop and prepare to execute the prisoners. Stas coolly stalls for time, engaging in philosophical debates with Snezhinskaya.

Suddenly, the Imperial fleet deploys massive repeaters into orbit around the Frost planets. They send a decoding return signal. The entire population of New Kuwait is instantly released from the total hypnosis. Snezhinskaya, enraged, uses telepathic suggestion as cover. She orders Tikkirey and Natasha to jump into a tank of industrial acid. The children lose control of their bodies and stumble toward the cliff. Old Man Semetsky accelerates his wheelchair and rams the dictator. He dies saving the children from falling into the acid. Stas breaks free from his handcuffs and knocks out the guards. Frost is finally defeated.

Return to civilian life

The conflict is successfully resolved. Tikkirey abandons his political career and returns to his home planet of Quarry. He reunites with his faithful friend, Dayka. The boy invites her and his friend, Gleb, to fly to Avalon forever. He wants to selflessly help those close to him, not rule an entire galaxy. Tikkirey understands from personal experience the true value of freedom of choice, true friendship, and human loyalty.