During World War II, earnest young Russian soldier Alyosha Skvortsov is rewarded with a short leave of absence for performing a heroic deed on the battlefield. Feeling homesick, he decides…

Pirx, an experienced pilot, is hired to go on a top-secret mission to evaluate some ‘nonlinears’ (an experimental model of android) for use as crewmembers on future space flights. Pirx…