Cycle people as gods sergey snows. People are like gods. Trilogy (Snegov Sergey). Rudiger Dahlke. "Illness as a Path" "Illness as the language of the soul." Crisis as a chance to start living better

Plot

Galactic Intelligence ()

Eli Gamazin, as part of a delegation from Earth, is sent to Oru for an interstellar conference. Ora is an artificial planet, flat in shape and illuminated by an artificial sun that turns into a moon at night. On Ora, during the conference, earthlings receive information about humanoids (galacts) who are at war with invisible enemies. Going to explore the Pleiades, the earthlings stumble upon a race of destroyers who kidnap Andre Sherstyuk. In pursuit of the destroyers Eli, Leonid Mrava and Olga Trondike discovered that in the open cluster and Perseus, space is curved in such a way that there is no way out of the cluster. Messages from unknown friends, presumably from galaxies, reach the earthlings via FTL communications, that they urgently need to get out of the cluster, but the destroyers do not allow them to do so. Finally, after many attempts, Olga decides to annihilate one of the planets near the "active" stars, turning its substance into empty space (Tanev's reaction). Olga succeeds, but their starship is hit by three gravitational shocks launched by destroyer ships.

Invasion of Perseus ()

Two space squadrons under the command of Eli Gamazin are sent to the χ Perseus cluster. There they meet with the Great Destroyer, the Galacts, the Dreamer-Brain, and learn about the existence of a mysterious and powerful people of the Ramirs, who created their civilization long before the Galacts. By joining forces with the Brain, the galaxies and their new unexpected allies among the destroyers, people break out of the networks of gravitational non-Euclideanness created by metric stations and direct their gaze to that part of the Universe where the ramirs have gone.

Reverse time ring ()

After the death of the First Expedition sent to the Core, the Second Expedition is formed on Earth, which includes people, galacts and demiurges. Eli Gamazin is included in it as the scientific leader of the expedition. A small fleet of 15 starships rushes into the depths of the Galaxy, meeting on its way the Red Star, the Perishing Worlds, the system of Three Dusty Suns, the people of Aran and Oan, traces of the Cruel Gods, Hymns to Existence and Nonexistence, the All-Destroying Ray, Time Breaks, hostile Gravity, madness of Machines and distortion of the sequence of events. At the same time, the members of the Second Expedition are experiencing the pain of heavy losses, trying to close the Ring of Time, which they decided to do after seeing the manifestations of the power of the Ramir.

Characters

People

• Eli Gamazin - main character storytelling. A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, slow-witted and a prankster. In the first part of the novel, he is the secretary of his older sister Vera, a crew member of the Space Eater. In the second - the admiral of the human flotilla sent to Perseus, the commander of the combined fleets of people and galacts. In the third - the scientific leader of the expedition to the core of the Galaxy.
• Andre Sherstyuk- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, a very close friend of Eli. "Idea's generator". He loves to change his appearance. He is married to Jeanne, who later will give birth to his son Oleg. In the first part, he composed the symphony "Harmony of the Starry Spheres", where, in addition to music, the listener was affected by changes in temperature and gravity. The symphony failed with a deafening crash. He took part in a campaign to the Pleiades, where he was kidnapped by destroyers. In the second part, where Eli and his friends are captured by the destroyers, Andre appears before the captives completely lost his mind. However, he recovers very quickly and helps the captives gain freedom, and when people capture one of the space warp stations, Andre takes over the leadership of this station.
• Pavel Romero- Historian and historiographer. Dressed in the fashion of the XIX-XX centuries, wears a goatee beard and a cane. He knows the history of the Earth very well. Fiance (later husband) of Vera Gamazina, Eli's sister.
• Lusin- a graduate of a school in the Himalayas, a biologist, an employee of the Institute of New Forms, who brought out mythical animals by influencing the genes of real ones. For example, he created pegasus from horses, and dragons from lizards. Lusin speaks as if in “hieroglyphs”, builds very short phrases of two or three words, and only those who know him well can understand him. He is very sensitive to all living things. He died in the third part of the novel on Arania while trying to prevent the mass suicide of local residents.
• Vera Gamazina- Eli's older sister and Pavel's fiancee (later wife). Member of the Grand Council. Very beautiful woman, always prettier in anger. He likes to stand at the window for a long time, throwing his head back and putting his hands on the back of his head. She died of natural causes before the beginning of the third part of the story.
• Mary Glan- Eli's wife (from the second part of the novel). A woman not sparkling with beauty, but pretty. She is fond of botany and microbiology , she brought out a group of bacteria that feed on metals and produce hydrogen and oxygen . She gave birth to a son, Astra.
• Olga Trondike- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, mathematician, captain of a spaceship, commander of a reserve squadron. All her life she loved Eli Gamazina, but she married Leonid Mrava. In his spare time he likes to calculate.
• Leonid Mrava- a graduate of a school in the Himalayas, the captain of a spaceship, a very sharp and impulsive person. Groom (later husband) Olga Trondike. He died before the beginning of the third part of the story.
• Allan Cruz- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, the captain of a spaceship. A very tall man with a loud voice. According to Eli Gamazin, Allan has only two states: he is either exultant or indignant. He died before the start of the third part of the story along with Leonid.
• Eduard Kamagin- a member of the crew of the Mendeleev starship (assistant captain), launched 400 years ago, attacked by destroyers. Due to Einstein's time dilation, observed at near-light speeds, it became possible to meet with their descendants. The captain of one of the spaceships. A man of small stature.
• Vasily Groman- Member of the crew of the Mendeleev starship (navigator).
• Oleg Sherstyuk- the son of Andre Sherstyuk, outwardly very similar to his father. Commander of the star squadron sent on an expedition to the Core. In love with Irina.
• Irina Trondike- daughter of Olga Trondike and Leonid Mrava. Character and appearance went to Leonid. Member of the expedition to the Core, Ellon's assistant, in love with her boss. After creating the collapsesan, she sent herself into the future. Further fate is unknown.
• Asters- the son of Eli Gamazin and Mary Glan, a bit like his father. "Infected" the life of the Third planet of the destroyers with a solution of microorganisms created by Mary that feed on metals. Died at the age of 6 years from the action of high gravity on the Third planet.

aliens

• Trumpets- a four-winged angel of enormous size, a brawler who considers himself a prince. Hailing from the ninth planet of the Flame B system in the Hyades. After a skirmish with Eli, he calmed down a little, and when all the participants left Ora, he wished to fly not home, but to Earth to people. He became very friendly with Eli and Lusin. In battle, he proved to be an excellent fighter. Perished in the Core when the expedition was struck by time cancer.
• fiola- a very beautiful snake with an almost human head, originally from Vega. Participant of the star conference on Ora. Eli falls in love with Fiola, but then quickly cools off.
• Orlan- destroyer (demiurge). Destroyer of the First Imperial category, a nobleman close to the Great, one of the first to understand that the philosophy of the destroyers is false, and actively helped Eli in the second part of the story. Accompanied Eli on an expedition to the Galactic planets. In the third part, he helped to get Ellon to complete the tasks.
• Ellon- destroyer (demiurge). One of the most brilliant minds, upgraded weapons that create non-Euclidean space, and installed them on the ships of the fleet in the third part of the story. He also developed a collapsar - a time machine. Mentally unbalanced (according to Grace, due to an excess of artificiality in his body). The cancer of time exacerbated Ellon's imbalance, and he died while trying to escape into the past.
• Gig- Destroyer, Invisible. Cheeky and friendly character. Like all invisibles, he is an excellent follower of orders, but too quick to make decisions. One of the first, along with Orlan, went over to Eli's side and adopted his philosophy (in the second part of the story). Also, together with Orlan, he accompanied Eli on an expedition to the planets of the Galacts. In the third part, he was mainly engaged in intelligence.
• Graces- a galact, a creature of three meters in height, very similar to people, with huge eyes and fingers that bend in all directions. One of the first Galacts who received Eli on the ship (in the second part of the story), took part in the management of the ship, duplicating the Brain. He endured cancer quite easily.
• Brain- the living brain of the origin of galacts. Used by the Destroyers to control the gravity plants on the Third Planet. He actively helped Gamazin in the confrontation with the destroyers. With Eli's consent, he took up residence in the body of the dragon Thunderer (after his brain was damaged in the battle for the Third Planet) to enjoy bodily sensations and called himself the Rogue. But when in the third part of the novel the body of the Thunderer grew old, he was returned to his previous state. He controlled the ships until the MMMs were damaged (Small Universal Machines - a kind of analogue of computers, control all equipment and provide, thanks to a complex system of sensors, telepathic communication between people). Presumably, he died because of Ellon's hatred for him, who sent him into the past.
• Ohan- a creature masquerading as arans, inhabitants of the planet Arania. It is later revealed that Oan is a spy for the Ramirs.

Publications

History of creation and publication

Snegov described the motives for creating his novel as follows:

Turned to science fiction. I wanted to write something that no one can object to. I gathered my relatives and friends and committed such hooliganism with them: I transferred them five hundred years into the future ... This is how the novel “People Are Like Gods” appeared.

There was another reason why I turned to science fiction. The fact is that in the West this literature is tragic. She describes our future as a realm of monsters. I wrote a novel about the bright future of mankind.

The publishing fate of the novel was not easy - it was rejected in a row by four publishing houses. The first book of the novel was first published in the science fiction collection Lenizdat "Hellenic Secret" in 1966 under the name "People are like gods". The second book came out two years later in a collection by the same publisher called "In the Starry Hollows"(wherein "Invasion of Perseus" was the title of the first part of the second book and the collection itself). In 1971, the first two books of the novel were published in Kaliningrad as a separate volume. In the 1970s, the third book of the novel was written, published in 1977. Finally, in 1982, all three books were collected in one volume, while the text of the novel was significantly reduced by the author (especially the first two books, which decreased by more than 15 percent) to bring its volume in line with the requirements of the publisher, and the first book got the name "Galactic Intelligence".

The novel has been translated into foreign languages and published in Germany, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, France.

List of publications

Russian editions

1. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods Hellenic secret / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L. : Lenizdat, 1966. - S. 22-304. - 518 p. - 65,000 copies.
2. Sergey Snegov. In the stellar gorges. // Invasion of Perseus / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1968. - S. 32-305. - 469 p. - 100,000 copies.
3. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad book publishing house, 1971. - 464 p. - 30,000 copies.
4. Sergey Snegov. Reverse Time Ring // Ring of reverse time / Comp. and ed. intro. Art. E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1977. - S. 11-270. - 639 p. - 100,000 copies.
5. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - L.: Lenizdat, 1982. - 719 p. - 50,000 copies.
6. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad book publishing house, 1986. - 607 p. - 50,000 copies.
7. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Doval-Nikishka, 1992. - 624 p. - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-8308-0015-2
8. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - St. Petersburg: North-West, 1992. - 634 p. - ISBN 5-835-2005-36
9. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Armada, 1996. - 528 p. - 20,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7632-0186-8
10. Sergey Snegov. Works in three volumes. T.1. People are like gods. - Azbuka-Terra, 1996. - 688 p. - ISBN 5-7684-0128-8, 5-7684-0127-x
11. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Tsentrpoligraf, 1997. - T. 1-2. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-218-00526-6, 5-218-00548-7
12. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - M-SPb: OOO AST Publishing House, Terra Fantastica, 2001. - 640 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-004122-5, 5-7921-0358-5
13. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Amphora, 2006. - 864 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-367-00212-9
14. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Amphora, 2006. - 864 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-94278-988-6
15. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Eksmo, 2010. - 736 p. - 4000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-699-44065-8

German editions

1. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - München: Heyne Verlag, 1972. - 380 p. - ISBN 3453304683
2. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Heyne Verlag, 1978. - 381 p. - ISBN 3453304683
3. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Moscow - Berlin: Verlag Mir - Das Neue Berlin, 1981.
4. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - 1996. - 600 p. - ISBN 3359008383
5. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Das Neue Berlin, 2003. - 634 p. - ISBN 3360008383
6. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Verlag Neues Leben, 2006. - 608 p. - ISBN 3355017264, 978-3355017268
7. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Heyne Verlag, 2010. - 608 p. - ISBN 3453525191

Polish editions

1. Siergiej Sniegow. Dalekie szlaki. - Iskry, 1972. - 540 p.
2. Siergiej Sniegow. Ludzie jak bogowie. - Współpraca, 1998. - ISBN 9788370180836

Hungarian editions

1. Szergej Sznyegov. Istenemberek. - Budapest: Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, 1988. - ISBN 9631163032

Japanese editions

1. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. 銀河の破壊者 . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1983. - 417 p. - ISBN 4-488-68201-4
2. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. ペルセウス座侵攻 . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1984. - 398 p. - ISBN 4-488-68202-2
3. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. 逆時間の環 . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1985. - 429 p. -

The Starfleet of the Earth of the distant future makes a long flight into the depths of the Universe. FTL ships that "devour" space and turn it into energy. Civilizations of galacts and destroyers clashed in a star war. Strange forms of the mind. Ability to manage time...

The novel by Sergei Snegov, written in the space opera genre, rare for the Soviet era, rightfully belongs to the best works of Russian science fiction that have passed the test of time, read and re-read today.

Interestingly, from the time of writing to the present day, the novel has only been published once in its entirety, without abbreviations. Our edition reproduces the uncut version of the book.

On our literary site vsebooks.ru you can download for free the book by Sergei Snegov "People as gods (collection)" in a suitable format for different devices: epub, fb2, txt, rtf. The book is the best teacher, friend and companion. It contains the secrets of the Universe, the riddles of man and the answers to any questions. We have gathered the best representatives of both foreign and domestic literature, classic and modern books, publications on psychology and self-development, fairy tales for children and works exclusively for adults. Everyone will find here exactly what will give a lot of pleasant moments.

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Sergey Snegov

PEOPLE LIKE GODS

(trilogy)

Address to readers

This five-volume edition is the first complete collection of Sergei Snegov's science fiction works. In any case, those that he himself wanted to see printed. Of all the novels, stories, pamphlets in Snegov's collections, there was only one short story - "The Arithmetic of Love", which is included in the cycle of space detectives. Until now, it has existed only in the magazine version.

These texts are well known to many fans of science fiction: only the novel "People are like gods" was published in Russian 12 times (and another 10 times in German, twice in Polish, Hungarian and Japanese). "The Dictator" and "Chrono-Navigators" were printed four times each, space detectives were published seven times (and for the most part - after his death). It would seem that everything is so settled that take any of the latest texts - and go!

But the fact is that we, as a rule, did not see the layout of these publications - even during the life of Snegov, he received it for verification far from every time. A lot of adventures fell to the share of these books, and "People are like gods" especially distinguished themselves. Once, when typing, they lost two pages - and discovered this just before being sent to the printing house. As a result, the editor wrote a sort of small "adapter" in half an hour, the storylines were very conditionally connected - and after a while the book went out of print. Once, having received the next edition, we could not believe our eyes: the novel had noticeably lost weight - the publishing house reduced it by 10 author's sheets (almost a quarter!). Naturally, no one warned us about this.

Sometimes, in order not to delay the layout, sentences and paragraphs were arbitrarily thrown out of the text - or they were added just as arbitrarily, which means that inconsistencies and inconsistencies often arose ... We really did not want to repeat these mistakes in the first Snegov's complete collection.

In addition, the first two parts of "People as Gods" were significantly reduced - a long time ago, back in the seventies. The fact is that their volume went off scale: in collections it could still pass, but in individual books it could not (then paper was worth its weight in gold, it was distributed from the center: so many tons to such and such a publishing house). These abbreviations were divided into three parts: first, Snegov removed those pieces that he was forced to insert when preparing the first publication - this was the condition under which the book could see the light of day. In 1980, while working on the Leningrad edition of "People as Gods", he not only crossed out - he blacked out them, and, I think, few other works gave him such pleasure! The next to be eliminated were insert characters and side storylines, as well as excessive detail that could be dispensed with. As a rule, these cuts improved the novel - but even if they didn't, they didn't worsen it, that's for sure. And, finally, the third group - these passages were really pitiful! They didn't elaborate or flesh out the plot—they worked for the characters, and by God, the characters in The People lost something when they were gone. Actually, we told him this - and he agreed with us, only his hands did not reach to return it.

We have done all this in the current edition: we restored some of the abbreviations, made the corrections that Snegov made for previous publications - which for some reason were not taken into account, removed extraneous additions, returned the paragraphs and sentences that evaporated during the printing process. It cannot be said that this text is as close as possible to any particular publication, but it is as close as possible to the author's version, to the version that, for various reasons, has not yet seen the light of day.

And this applies not only to "People as Gods" - this is how we worked with all five volumes of this collected works.

Tatiana Lenskaya

GALACTIC INTELLIGENCE

Part one

SNAKE GIRL WITH VEGA

From Frascatti to old Rome

Peter the Astrologer came out.

High black above him

The sky is a starry canopy.

He looked into the darkness

From your plain.

And dreamed of him

Strange pictures.

N. Morozov

I am a man: like a god I am doomed

To know the longing of all countries and all times.

For me, this story began with the fact that on the second day after returning to Earth, while walking over the craters of Kilimanjaro, I met Lusin riding a fire-breathing dragon.

I don't like flying dragons. They have something from the ancient theater. And I simply can not stand clumsy pegasi. For flights on Earth, I take an ordinary air ticket - it's more reliable and more convenient. But Lusin cannot imagine movement without dragons. At school, when these foul-smelling monsters were just becoming fashionable, Lusin climbed the Chomolungma on a training dragon, the Dragon soon died, even though he was wearing an oxygen mask, and Lusin was forbidden to appear in the stable for a month. Forty-three years have passed since then, but Lusin has not grown wiser.

He insists that the soul of his ancestors plays in him, deifying these strange creatures, in my opinion, he is original. Andre Sherstyuk and he are ready to turn inside out, just to hit something - such a people!

And when a winged serpent, shrouded in smoke and flame, rushed from the Indian Ocean, I immediately realized that Lusin was on it. Lusin shouted a greeting and landed on the bluff of the Kibo crater. I circled in the air, looking at his beast, then sat down too. Lusin ran to me, we shook hands cordially. We haven't seen each other for two years. Lusin enjoyed my surprise.

The dragon was large, about ten meters. He sprawled helplessly on the rocks, wearily closed his bulging green eyes, his thin sides, armored with orange scales, swelled and sunk, sweaty wings trembled. Smoke swirled over the beast's head, and when it exhaled, flames burst out of its mouth. Fire-breathing dragons were new to me.

The latest model, - said Lusin. - Two years removed. Informants praise. Good, no?

Lusin works at the Institute of New Forms - INFe - and does not get tired of boasting that they create living neoplasms, which nature will not reach even in a billion years. Some things, like talking dolphins, they did really well. Smoking like a volcano, the kite did not seem beautiful to me.

All this props are useless. Unless, of course, you are planning to scare the kids with it.

Lusin lovingly patted the dragon on one of its twelve frog legs.

Effective. We'll take you to Ora. Let them watch.

It annoys me when they talk about Ora. Half of my friends fly there, but I'm out of luck. It's not their luck that infuriates me, of course, but the fact that they turn the most interesting meeting with the inhabitants of other worlds into a primitive exhibition of toys. What kind of products are not dragged to Oru!

Nonsense! No one there will look at your fossil. Each stargazer is more amazing in itself than all your curiosities. I think cars will interest them much more.

Cars - yes! Animals, too. All Yes!

And you - yes! I teased. - That's really a sample of a man of the fifth century: red-haired, red-eyed, height ninety-two meters, age - about sixty, lonely. No matter how a thinking toad falls in love with you. And you can't get away with a dragon!

Lusin smiled and shook his head.

You're jealous, Eli. Ancient feeling. To dragons. Understand. I would be in your place.

Lusin speaks like hieroglyphs. We are accustomed to his speech, but strangers do not always understand him. However, he does not like to talk to strangers.

His reproach upset me, and I turned away indignantly. Lusin put his hand on my shoulder.

Ask - how? he asked sadly. - Interesting.

I nodded so as not to upset Lusin with indifference. From the story, I understood that combustible substances are synthesized in the dragon's stomach and that the dragon himself is neither cold nor hot from this.

Lusin is working on the theme: “The materialization of the monsters of ancient folklore”, the fire-breathing dragon is his fourth model, the forms following it are the winged Assyrian lions and the reptile Egyptian sphinxes.

I want the god Horus with the head of a falcon,” said Lusin. - Not approved yet. Hope.

I remembered that André was taking to Ora a symphony he had composed called Harmony of the Starry Spheres, and that the first performance of the symphony would take place that evening in Cairo. I have doubts about Andre's musical abilities, but music is better than smoking snakes.

Lusin jumped up.

Did not know. We fly to Cairo. I'm ahead. to the rocket station.

Enjoy the poisonous fumes of your freak yourself, I said. - And I'm the old fashioned way: one, two, three - and there are no hundred kilometers!

I managed to overtake Lusin by twenty minutes. While he squeezed the last kilometers out of his orange slug, I arranged for the dragon to be fed at the Pegasus Stable.

The story is told in the first person, like the memoirs of Eli Gamazin, a former Starfleet Admiral.

On Earth, the fifth century of the Communist era, state fragmentation has long been eliminated, automatic factories produce everything you need in abundance, including synthetic food. From the hardships of the past, only vague memories remain, obscure to everyone except the historian Pablo Romero. Each person has a telepathic connection with computers - any, even a random thought, can become the property of all Humanity, if the computer considers it significant. This is what subsequently happens with Gamazin's idea of ​​building a space wave station on Earth. Computers protect people from dangerous acts, allow you to inquire about any person (including Family status, height, weight, age), allow the suggestion of thoughts to others, for example, about a personal meeting. This is how Gamazin, at the beginning of the story, still a simple engineer, meets his future wife, Mary Glan (more precisely, she is with him).

Not so long ago, Earthlings mastered the effect of turning space into matter, which made real-time interstellar flights possible. A stationary starship destroys space in front of it and generates it behind it, actually moving at FTL towards its intended target. Relativistic effects (in particular, time dilation) do not work with such a displacement. The stellar systems closest to the Earth were surveyed. Found civilizations are significantly behind the Earth in their development. On Ore, a man-made artificial planet in the Aldebaran region, Mankind is holding the first interstellar conference. And then it suddenly turns out that the memory of aliens contains information about other powerful civilizations - humanoid galaxies and Destroyers (the appearance of the Destroyers is unclear). In the past, unimaginable wars raged between the galacts and the Destroyers, the objects of destruction in which were no longer people and mechanisms, but entire star systems. The main objective of the conference on Ora is to obtain new information about the galaxies and the Destroyers. Gamazin and his friends are talking to various aliens, appearance which is determined by the living conditions on their native planets (droplet, arachnid, serpentine). For representatives of each alien race, earthlings created separate hotels on Or with their usual gravity, temperature, and lighting. Romero is disgusted by the sight of aliens, while Eli, on the contrary, falls in love with a snake girl from Vega. However, he quickly becomes convinced that their love is impossible beyond verbal explanations. The Altairians have a picture of captured galacts, but those who captured them are not depicted. Andrey Sherstyuk suggests that the destroyers are invisible.

Earthlings send two ships deep into the Galaxy for further reconnaissance. In the Pleiades star cluster, people, it seems to them, are finally figuring out the shape of the Destroyers. They are creatures that look like a helmet with a growth - they are called head-eyes. The Headeyes attack the Earthlings, but they manage to win using their individual force fields. However, the head-eyes are only the gendarmerie of the Destroyers. Unfortunately, real fighters of the Destroyers really turn out to be invisible! They kidnap Andre, Eli manages to kill the invisible man and he becomes visible. The invisible man looks like a bare skeleton, the nerves and blood vessels of which are inside the bones, invisibility is achieved by the work of the space warp, as a result of which any rays go around the invisible man. Having deciphered the communications of the Destroyers, the earthlings are surprised to find that their communication is transmitted faster than the speed of light. People do not have such opportunities at the time of events. A battle ensues between a squadron of Destroyers and two human starships. The Destroyers' weapons are gravity strikes (non-stationary gravitational fields). The weapons of earthlings are annihilators, which turn matter into space. However, FTL-moving Destroyer ships are invisible. People are saved by the fact that in order to apply gravitational strikes, the Destroyers are forced to enter the sublight mode. The Earthlings manage to annihilate four Destroyer starships, after which the enemy squadron leaves the Pleiades.

It was decided to immediately return one of the spaceships to Earth, so as not to risk the most valuable information received. The second ship is sent to the star clusters of Hee and Ash Perseus, where the Destroyers are revealed to reside. On the flight, Eli constantly thinks about the method of superluminal communication between the Destroyers and discovers the waves of space - perturbations of the metric, capable of transferring information almost instantly. Using the waves of space, earthlings mount a locator and transmitter on the starship - now they can see in the superluminal region. In the Chi Perseus Cluster, the humans find they have no control over the starship's path. The destroyers somehow change the metric of space, making it non-Euclidean, and as a result, the flight path is curved. Olga Trondike is developing a breakthrough plan - to annihilate one of the planets, break into the newly created space, the metrics of which the Destroyers still do not fully control, and exit the cluster through it. The breakthrough succeeds, but the Destroyers manage to inflict gravity strikes on the starship. As a result, Eli Gamazin is seriously injured, falls into a coma, from which he comes out only when he approaches Ora.

Mankind decides to start a war against the Destroyers. On Earth, Eli meets again with Mary Glan, whom Romero invites to a picnic on the occasion of the First Snow holiday. At the picnic, guests drink real (not non-alcoholic) wine and grill kebabs from real (not synthetic) lamb. Eli wants to take Mary away from the picnic, a quarrel breaks out between him and Romero, which almost turns into a fight. However, the conflict has been settled. A fleet is formed on Ora for the company in Perseus. Before flying to Oru, Eli calls to fly with him and Mary Glan, in fact, making her an offer. The girl agrees.

Invasion of Perseus ()

Continuation of the memoirs of Eli Gamazin.

Eli Gamazin and Mary Glan are now married. On Ora, their son Astra is born. Biologist Lusin demonstrates his latest creation - the fire-breathing dragon Thunderer. It was decided to take dragons, like pegasi, on a campaign. Eli Gamazin has been promoted to Admiral of the Fleet. Mary insists on participating in the campaign with her son, after much persuasion, Eli agrees. The flotilla arrives at Perseus. The flagship of the admiral is the starship Bootes. However, the destroyers, distorting the metric of space, do not let the invasion fleet into the cluster - the fleet is thrown out. Gamazin develops a breakthrough plan:

1. the entire fleet storms the non-Euclidean barrier - the Destroyers are forced to use their energy to the fullest;
2. taking advantage of this, three starships, including the Bootes, break through elsewhere, opening the way for the others.

Command of the fleet is transferred to Allan Cruz. Mary and her son flatly refuse to part with her husband. The three starship breakthrough succeeds, but Allan's fleet is repulsed. Trying to leave the cluster, earthlings use slow annihilation (first of a planet-like body, then of their two starships). The attempt is futile, but this technique will be useful to Allan's fleet, which Gamazin gives his last order to.

The Destroyers offer "Boötes" to surrender. Everyone prefers to die in battle, but the admiral insists on surrendering, motivating his decision by the possibility of direct contact with the Destroyers and the continuation of the reconnaissance mission. Orlan, commander of the Destroyer fleet, Destroyer of the First Imperial category, appears on the captured Bootes. He, like other representatives of the "superior" race among the Destroyers, is humanoid, however, he has the privilege of changing his appearance. On the Nickel Planet, prisoners are taken out of the starship and placed in special rooms, moreover, equipped for both dragons and pegasi. Orlan gives Eli the man Andre (captured during the battles in the Pleiades), but it turns out that he is insane. Subsequently, Andre will come to his senses, and will play an important role in the war against the Destroyers. He will tell that, having been captured, he waited with horror for interrogations and torture. To avoid them, he decided to drive himself crazy, focusing absolutely all his thoughts on an object obviously unknown to the Destroyers - a gray goat from a children's song.

The Great Destroyer - the head of the Empire - offers Mankind an alliance for joint ownership of the Galaxy. Eli insists on broadcasting their talks live to the entire Empire, to which the Great One reluctantly agrees. That was his fatal mistake! During the negotiations, the Great One reports a civilization of the Ramirs, vastly more powerful than humans and the Destroyers. However, the Ramiers are busy rebuilding the core of the Galaxy and nothing else interests them. This information is the most significant for earthlings. Eli refuses the union, the Great dooms him to the desire for an unattainable death. Upon returning to the cell of captives, Eli is imprisoned in an invisible force cage, he is doomed to the pangs of hunger and thirst. The admiral endures the torment relatively easily, because he knows that according to the stupid sentence of the Great, death does not threaten him. He is visited by strange dreams, either he finds himself in a hall with a dome and a frightening ball in the center, or he attends meetings with the Great One, where the reports of the Destroyers take place in the most bizarre forms (they spread, explode, stink). During the last of the dreams, Eli learns about the malfunctions on the Third Planet, which led to the wedging of the Earth fleet into the cluster, which is dangerous for the Destroyers, about the terrible biological weapon of the galacts, that it was decided to evacuate the captives to the Manganese planet, away from the place of possible battles (and, obviously, , to avoid the risk of forced release from captivity). The next day, an order is received to evacuate to Margantsevaya, Eli is allowed to drink and eat.

Earthlings are placed on the Bootes along with a detachment of Destroyers led by Orlan. Suddenly space warps so that the starships of the convoy, the entire outside world, all other stars disappear. Orlan says that they are being carried to the Third Planet and that they need to reach the World Metric Station as soon as possible, which they cannot contact. The grueling transition to the Station through areas of high gravity begins. During it, Astra dies. People are preparing and starting an uprising, but it turns out that it is not a secret for the Destroyers - some of them, including Orlan himself and the commander of the invisible Gig, go over to the side of the people. After the victory, Orlan tells that as a result of the dialogue between the Great One and Admiral Gamazin, many Destroyers, like himself, doubted the correctness of the imperial policy. It was at the initiative of Orlan that "prophetic dreams" were transmitted to Eli's brain. Humans and their new allies begin an assault on Metrica Station. Flying dragons and pegasi play an important role in it. As a result, the Station was taken, but the dragon Thunderer was mortally wounded in the battle. Upon entering the Station's Master Brain, Eli recognizes the same room with the orb that was in his dreams. The Main Brain of the Station, specially extracted from the body of a captive galact and trained to control the metrics of space, turned out to be a dreamer, he imagined himself to be various inhabitants of the Universe. When the human starship first appeared in Perseus, it had hope. Now he agrees to exchange his eternal motionless existence for a short, but full-fledged biological life. Eli and Lusin agree with the Brain to transplant him into the body of the dragon Thunderer. At the same time, he retains his mind and the ability to speak. The brain chooses a new name for itself - Tramp.

The space around the Third Planet is hyped, a concentration of a huge fleet of Destroyers is found in the area of ​​the future breakthrough of Allan's squadron. Orlan offers to turn to the Galacts for help. Negotiations begin. It turns out that galacts live indefinitely, replacing their organs with artificially grown ones. That is why they, the immortals, are terribly afraid of death, and therefore of war. In the legends of the galacts, the memory of the ramirs, the creators of the planets, has been preserved. When the ramirs moved to the core of the Galaxy, all the star systems of Perseus passed to the galaxies. The Destroyers did not yet exist, because the galacts themselves created them. These were the serfs, who were endowed with intelligence and the ability to reproduce, but created, however, same-sex in order to protect them from the mental anguish of love. Because of this, instead of sympathy for their neighbor, they developed self-adoration and selfishness. Under the pretext of exploring new worlds, the serfs moved to empty planets and started a war against their creators. At present, the Destroyers completely dominate this region of the Galaxy, but on their planets, the galacts are safe, because they are protected by weapons that inevitably affect all life.

Galacts demonstrate to people and their allies one of the biological weapons - an asteroid, inside of which there is a living core. Galactic starships are equipped with similar weapons. The directional radiation of the core, which the galacts have learned to control, penetrates through any obstacles, destroying any life. The Destroyers cannot break through to the planets of the galacts, but the galaxies cannot direct their radiation to the planets of the Destroyers either, since Metric Stations have been created precisely to combat this. In the last big war, the Metric Station warped space so that the biological beams of the galacts fell on their own planets. After that, the galacts have abandoned active hostilities and are locked in their star systems. Persuading the galacts to help, Eli Gamazin delivers an impassioned speech in which he frightens them with the prospect of a breakout of Destroyer automaton starships, devoid of biologicality and, then, the horrors of death and captivity. The Galacts agree to go to war. Their fleet, the command of which they entrust to Admiral Gamazin, is heading to the area of ​​the breakthrough of Allan's ships. A general battle takes place, the details of which the memoirist does not describe, referring the reader to Romero's reports. Complete victory won: The Destroyers lost a third of their fleet, the rest of their fleet was scattered, the combined fleet of humans and galacts suffered no losses. Gamazin talks about new task- Expeditions to the core of the Galaxy to contact the mysterious powerful civilization of the Ramirs.

Reverse time ring ()

The text is again the memoirs of Eli Gamazin. Moreover, at the beginning, the author reports that they are fully aware of the blame and bear all responsibility for the probable death of the expedition and dictates the notes in the hope that by some miracle they will reach the Earth.

The memoirs begin with the receipt of a message about the death of the expedition of Alan Cruz and Leonid Mrava to the core of the Galaxy, it is assumed that they were fighting against it. fighting, disguised as curiosities of nature (predatory planets, mysterious beam strikes). At the funeral, Eli again meets old friends: Romero, Lusin, demiurges (as the destroyers are now called) Orlan and Gig, Leonid's widow Olga with her adult daughter Irina. It was decided to send a second expedition to the core of the Galaxy, Oleg Sherstyuk, Andre's son, was appointed its commander. Gamazin was offered the position of scientific supervisor. His wife Mary, as always, is inseparable from her husband. Eli takes the dragon Rogue (the former Master Brain of the Space Metric Station) on an expedition. He has grown old, but does not regret the lost immortality, has tried all the joys of life and is ready to face death calmly. The engineering genius Demiurge Ellon directs the technical equipment of starships. Mary tells her husband that she noticed that Irina is in love with Ellon, and this can create problems on the expedition. Eli counters by referring to personal experience youth, that love for aliens is safe, because it is hopeless.

When passing through the dust clouds covering the Core, the expedition meets a dust-absorbing predator planet, which is discarded by metric generators, sees a beam of colossal force hitting one of the stars - an analogue of those rays that killed Allan's crews, only incomparably greater power. If the rays are the weapons of the ramirs, then there is no protection against them. Nevertheless, at the meeting of the commanders, it was decided to continue the flight to the Core. Starships pass through a globular cluster of planets with ideal conditions for biological life, however, absolutely sterile. "Paradise for export", according to Gamazin. All such clusters move away from the Core, it is, as it were, “evaporated” by them. If the exporters are Ramiers, then what unimaginable technological and industrial power must their civilization have?

The expedition observes the gravitational collapse of one of the stars and then sees something incredible - flying from black hole starship. Six aliens are found in it, of which only one is alive. He has the appearance of a twelve-legged spider (Romero gives his race the name "arana"). Aran telepathically freely communicates with everyone, reads thoughts. Oan, as he asks to be called himself, says that they are fugitives from the Perishing Worlds, who are stricken with a terrible disease - the cancer of time. Therefore, they tried to get out through the collapsar at any other time. Once upon a time, the Arans were a powerful civilization, but the Cruel Gods appeared - they stirred up the stars, causing them to expire with dust that covered all space. The Aran created automata ships that collect dust and turn into predator planets as it accumulates. But unknown aliens threw out the planet-cleaners to no one knows where. The cruel Gods struck the Aran star system with the cancer of time, it began to break apart inside the mechanisms and living beings: some parts and organs lived in the past, others - in the future. Aran civilization has suffered a deep regression - it has degenerated into the religious sects of the End Accelerators, who prefer death to torment from the Cruel Gods, and the End Rejecters, who dream of preventing death and stole the last starship to fly to the collapser. Oan asks the expedition to help those in need.

In the Dying Worlds, it turns out that the Accelerators have ordered self-immolation, the expedition decides to prevent it. This succeeds, but Lusin dies as a result. One of the cargo ships begins annihilating dust to clear space, but its on-board computer soon fails. Oan states that the computer is afflicted with the cancer of time, for the Cruel Gods looked at the expedition with their unkind eye. Oleg Sherstyuk proposes to annihilate one of the lifeless planets, the newly created space will be free from dust. However, the Ramiers (are they the Cruel Gods?) attack first: a mysterious beam destroys the starship preparing to strike. After the catastrophe, on the initiative of Gamazin, a secret meeting of the command staff of the fleet is convened. Eli proves that Oan is a secret scout of the ramirs, more precisely, he is the ramir who has taken the form of an aran. During the interrogation, Oan blurts out, saying that the purpose of the flight to the collapsar was an attempt to master the bends of time, which would open up the possibility of bringing to the past, to the future, to the side “now”, clusters of stars that are dying in weakening time. Realizing that he has been revealed, the ramir begins to disappear, Ellon manages to catch him in a force cage. Dead Oan is placed in a conservatory - a special room on the starship. Soon Gamazin develops a strange habit of going there and talking with Oan, talking aloud.

To restore the control of starships, it was decided to use the old profession of the Tramp. The operation to transplant the Tramp's brain is to be performed by Ellon, who trained as a Destroyer of the Fourth Imperial Order. Ellon refuses, but Orlan forces him, for a few minutes once again becoming a powerful nobleman of the First category. The Former Tramp asks not to be called the Master Brain, Eli gives him the name "Voice". Gamazin assumes that the ramyrs, by not allowing the explosions to occur, will allow a slow annihilation, and it turns out that the expeditionary fleet begins a slow annihilation of the planet intended for this with the help of two cargo starships and leaves the Perishing Worlds. Having completed the passage through the dust clouds, the expedition now sees a giant stellar bonfire - the core of the Galaxy. Chaos reigns in it, the stars move too close to each other, they act on each other with huge gravitational forces. There is no question of the presence of planets in such conditions. Everyone understands that the future of the core is a mutual group collision of stars and a colossal explosion. (Galaxies with exploding cores have been known to earthlings since the 20th century. Example: M87.) The first attempt to escape from the core almost leads to death: Ellon is wounded, Irina hugs and kisses him, however, Ellon does not understand the meaning of her actions. Gamazin observes the unimaginable - the stars pass through each other without colliding. The voice explains this by a gap in time (one star was in the past, the other in the future). For the second attempt to escape, it was decided to annihilate one of the starships, but it is destroyed by a beam of ramirs. Everyone is in a panic, the ramirs, it turns out, are here in the Core. It is they who do not release the expeditionary fleet. The gap between the past and the future begins to affect the psyche, most of them “fall into the past”: Orlan turns into an arrogant imperial dignitary, Mary reproaches her husband for falling out of love with her and leaving her, flying away to Ora and Perseus. Then Gamazin, in order to move from the past to the present, goes to the conservative and begins to dictate memories.

Ellon is studying the properties of time by experimenting with a microcollapsar. Under the strict control of Orlan himself, he developed a time stabilizer. Time in the spaceship is whole again, everyone becomes themselves again. However, Ellon never came out of the past, he believes that he is doomed to be a servant of the fourth category, he will forever be pushed around by Orlan and the other government. Ellon shows Eli and Oleg the finished time machine, climbs inside and announces that he is going to the past, to the Third Planet of Perseus, taking with him the Voice - the former Master Brain of the Space Metrics Station. When trying to bring Ellon back from the past, he dies; what happened to the Voice is unknown. Irina is hysterical, she explains that Ellon called her to the future, at a time when an earthly woman can be happy with the demiurge, but he himself decided to return to the past. Taking advantage of the general confusion, Irina enters the time machine and is carried away into the future. So far away that it can't be returned. In addition to these losses, Gamazin announces to the crew that he has found a new Ramir infiltrator on the starship. Eli states that the spy for the Ramirs is himself. He talked in a conservative with Oan, revealed to the enemies the plans for leaving the Core. Oan is not dead - he is a sensor, a eavesdropping device of the ramirs. Romero justifies Eli, because the Ramiers are not enemies, they are simply indifferent to the expedition. The Ramiers are busy rebuilding the core, but what's the point of rebuilding? It is necessary to save the Galaxy from an explosion, to bring everything that is possible out of the core. The Ramiers are lumberjacks, felling diseased trees to save the entire forest, and the rest of the civilizations are the ants of this forest. Ramirs are not up to them, but if the ants bite the lumberjacks, they kill the ants.

Gamazin's self-accusations are rejected, in another conversation with Oan, he shouts in rage that now time is not dead in their hands, and they will break out of captivity through the future, past, crooked time, perpendicular time. Great discovery made! In the Core, due to the huge gravity, time is two-dimensional, this is what creates its breaks, which, in fact, bends, and prevents the collision of stars. Using Ellon's ingenious time machine design, the starship warps time by gradually increasing its angle of evasion. Eli corrects Romero's theory - the Ramiers became interested in Ellon's experiments and deliberately infected the expedition with time cancer, raising its status from ants to guinea pigs. However, Gamazin does not agree to this either. In the last conversation with Oan, he compares the ramirs - thinking dead matter, which was once planets in Perseus, but here it took the form of stars, with biological life. This life is negligible in terms of mass, but not in terms of the strength of its impact on nature. It is developing rapidly, it is the youth of the world - the future of the Galaxy. Eli asks the ramirs, or, as he guesses, the united stellar mind of a single ramir, for Oan to disappear as a sign of understanding of his theses. This is what happens at the end of the story. The spaceship leaves the core of the Galaxy in the region of the Dying Worlds and returns to its own time one Earth year later than they were there for the first time. The path of contact: from rejection to friendliness, passed!

Characters

People

• Eli Gamazin- The main character of the story. A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, slow-witted and a prankster. In the first part of the novel, he is the secretary of his older sister Vera, a crew member of the Space Eater. In the second - the admiral of the human flotilla sent to Perseus, the commander of the combined fleets of people and galacts. In the third - the scientific leader of the expedition to the core of the Galaxy.
• Andre Sherstyuk- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, a very close friend of Eli. "Idea's generator". He loves to change his appearance. He is married to Jeanne, who later will give birth to his son Oleg. In the first part, he composed the symphony "Harmony of the Starry Spheres", where, in addition to music, the listener was affected by changes in temperature and gravity. The symphony failed with a deafening crash. He took part in a campaign to the Pleiades, where he was kidnapped by destroyers. In the second part, where Eli and his friends are captured by the destroyers, Andre appears before the captives completely lost his mind. However, he recovers very quickly and helps the captives gain freedom, and when people capture one of the space warp stations, Andre takes over the leadership of this station.
• Pavel Romero- Historian and historiographer. Dressed in the fashion of the XIX-XX centuries, wears a goatee beard and a cane. He knows the history of the Earth very well. Fiance (later husband) of Vera Gamazina, Eli's sister.
• Lusin- a graduate of a school in the Himalayas, a biologist, an employee of the Institute of New Forms, who brought out mythical animals by influencing the genes of real ones. For example, he created pegasus from horses, and dragons from lizards. Lusin speaks as if in “hieroglyphs”, builds very short phrases of two or three words, and only those who know him well can understand him. He is very sensitive to all living things. He died in the third part of the novel on Arania while trying to prevent the mass suicide of local residents.
• Vera Gamazina- Eli's older sister and Pavel's fiancee (later wife). Member of the Grand Council. A very beautiful woman, always prettier in anger. He likes to stand at the window for a long time, throwing his head back and putting his hands on the back of his head. She died of natural causes before the beginning of the third part of the story.
• Mary Glan- Eli's wife (from the second part of the novel). A woman not sparkling with beauty, but pretty. She is fond of botany and microbiology , she brought out a group of bacteria that feed on metals and produce hydrogen and oxygen . She gave birth to a son, Astra.
• Olga Trondike- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, mathematician, captain of a spaceship, commander of a reserve squadron. All her life she loved Eli Gamazina, but she married Leonid Mrava. In his spare time he likes to calculate.
• Leonid Mrava- a graduate of a school in the Himalayas, the captain of a spaceship, a very sharp and impulsive person. Groom (later husband) Olga Trondike. He died before the beginning of the third part of the story.
• Allan Cruz- A graduate of a school in the Himalayas, the captain of a spaceship. A very tall man with a loud voice. According to Eli Gamazin, Allan has only two states: he is either exultant or indignant. He died before the start of the third part of the story along with Leonid.
• Eduard Kamagin- a member of the crew of the Mendeleev starship (assistant captain), launched 400 years ago, attacked by destroyers. Due to Einstein's time dilation, observed at near-light speeds, it became possible to meet with their descendants. The captain of one of the spaceships. A man of small stature.
• Vasily Groman- Member of the crew of the Mendeleev starship (navigator).
• Oleg Sherstyuk- the son of Andre Sherstyuk, outwardly very similar to his father. Commander of the star squadron sent on an expedition to the Core. In love with Irina.
• Irina Trondike- daughter of Olga Trondike and Leonid Mrava. Character and appearance went to Leonid. Member of the expedition to the Core, Ellon's assistant, in love with her boss. After creating the collapsesan, she sent herself into the future. Further fate is unknown.
• Asters- the son of Eli Gamazin and Mary Glan, a bit like his father. "Infected" the life of the Third planet of the destroyers with a solution of microorganisms created by Mary that feed on metals. He died at the age of about 9 years from the action of high gravity on the Third planet.

aliens

• Trumpets- a four-winged angel of enormous size, a brawler who considers himself a prince. Hailing from the ninth planet of the Flame B system in the Hyades. After a skirmish with Eli, he calmed down a little, and when all the participants left Ora, he wished to fly not home, but to Earth to people. He became very friendly with Eli and Lusin. In battle, he proved to be an excellent fighter. Perished in the Core when the expedition was struck by time cancer.
• fiola- a very beautiful snake with an almost human head, originally from Vega. Participant of the star conference on Ora. Eli falls in love with Fiola, but then quickly cools off.
• Orlan- destroyer (demiurge). Destroyer of the First Imperial category, a nobleman close to the Great, one of the first to understand that the philosophy of the destroyers is false, and actively helped Eli in the second part of the story. Accompanied Eli on an expedition to the Galactic planets. In the third part, he helped to get Ellon to complete the tasks.
• Ellon- destroyer (demiurge). One of the most brilliant minds, upgraded weapons that create non-Euclidean space, and installed them on the ships of the fleet in the third part of the story. He also developed a collapsar - a time machine. Mentally unbalanced (according to Grace, due to an excess of artificiality in his body). The cancer of time exacerbated Ellon's imbalance, and he died while trying to escape into the past.
• Gig- Destroyer, Invisible. Cheeky and friendly character. Like all invisibles, he is an excellent follower of orders, but too quick to make decisions. One of the first, along with Orlan, went over to Eli's side and adopted his philosophy (in the second part of the story). Also, together with Orlan, he accompanied Eli on an expedition to the planets of the Galacts. In the third part, he was mainly engaged in intelligence.
• Tigran- galaxy. Made first contact with earthlings.
• Graces- galaxy. The negotiator, a xenosociologist, negotiated with earthlings on behalf of the galactic civilization. Later he took part in the expedition to the Core, acting as an agent of the world, and after the disappearance of the Tramp, he took over the functions of managing the ships and the time machine. He endured cancer quite easily.
• Brain- a living isolated brain of the origin of galacts. Used by the Destroyers to control the gravity plants on the Third Planet. He actively helped Gamazin in the confrontation with the destroyers. With Eli's consent, he took up residence in the body of the dragon Thunderer (after the latter's brain was damaged in the battle for the Third Planet) to enjoy bodily sensations, and called himself the Tramp. But when in the third part of the novel the body of the Thunderer grew old, he was returned to his previous state. He controlled the ships until the MMMs were damaged (Small Universal Machines - a kind of analogue of computers, control all equipment and provide, thanks to a complex system of sensors, telepathic communication between people). Presumably, he died because of Ellon's hatred for him, who sent him into the past.
• Ohan- a creature masquerading as arans, inhabitants of the planet Arania. It is later revealed that Oan is a spy for the Ramirs.

Reviews of the novel

I really liked Snegov's novel - well done, even though his people are even weaker than our ancestors - nervous, hectic, rude. But there are more than enough fantasies - it's great just write more.

Turned to science fiction. I wanted to write something that no one can object to. I gathered my relatives and friends and committed such hooliganism with them: I transferred them five hundred years into the future ... This is how the novel “People Are Like Gods” appeared.

There was another reason why I turned to science fiction. The fact is that in the West this literature is tragic. She describes our future as a realm of monsters. I wrote a novel about the bright future of mankind.

The publishing fate of the novel was not easy - it was rejected in a row by four publishing houses. The first book of the novel was first published in the science fiction collection Lenizdat "Hellenic Secret" in 1966 under the name "People are like gods". The second book came out two years later in a collection by the same publisher called "In the Starry Hollows"(wherein "Invasion of Perseus" was the title of the first part of the second book and the collection itself). In 1971, in Kaliningrad, the first two books of the novel were published as a separate volume in a slightly modified edition, and the first book received the title "Galactic Intelligence". In the 1970s, the third book of the novel was written, published in 1977. Finally, in 1982, all three books were collected in one volume, while the text of the novel was significantly reduced by the author (especially the first two books, which decreased by more than 15 percent) to bring its length in line with the requirements of the publisher.

The novel was translated into foreign languages ​​and published in Germany, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, France.

List of publications

Russian editions

1. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L. : Lenizdat, 1966. - S. 22-304. - 518 p. - 65,000 copies.
2. Sergey Snegov. In the stellar gorges. // / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1968. - S. 32-305. - 469 p. - 100,000 copies.
3. Sergey Snegov.. - Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad book publishing house, 1971. - 464 p. - 30,000 copies.
4. Sergey Snegov. Reverse Time Ring // / Comp. and ed. intro. Art. E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1977. - S. 11-270. - 639 p. - 100,000 copies.
5. Sergey Snegov.. - L.: Lenizdat, 1982. - 719 p. - 50,000 copies.
6. Sergey Snegov.. - Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad book publishing house, 1986. - 607 p. - 50,000 copies.
7. Sergey Snegov.. - Doval-Nikishka, 1992. - 624 p. - 50,000 copies. - ISBN 5-8308-0015-2.
8. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - St. Petersburg: North-West, 1992. - 634 p. - ISBN 5-835-2005-36.
9. Sergey Snegov.. - Armada, 1996. - 528 p. - 20,000 copies. - ISBN 5-7632-0186-8.
10. Sergey Snegov.. - Azbuka-Terra, 1996. - 688 p. - ISBN 5-7684-0128-8, 5-7684-0127-x.
11. Sergey Snegov.. - Tsentrpoligraf, 1997. - T. 1-2. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-218-00526-6, 5-218-00548-7.
12. Sergey Snegov.. - M-SPb: OOO AST Publishing House, Terra Fantastica, 2001. - 640 p. - 10,000 copies. - ISBN 5-17-004122-5, 5-7921-0358-5.
13. Sergey Snegov.. - Amphora, 2006. - 864 p. - 5000 copies. - ISBN 5-367-00212-9.
14. Sergey Snegov.. - Amphora, 2006. - 864 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 5-94278-988-6.
15. Sergey Snegov.. - Eksmo, 2010. - 736 p. - 4000 copies. - ISBN 978-5-699-44065-8.

German editions

1. Sergei Snow.. - München: Heyne Verlag, 1972. - 380 p. - ISBN 3453304683.
2. Sergei Snow.. - Heyne Verlag, 1978. - 381 p. - ISBN 3453304683.
3. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Moscow - Berlin: Verlag Mir - Das Neue Berlin, 1981.
4. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - 1996. - 600 p. - ISBN 3359008383.
5. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Das Neue Berlin, 2003. - 634 p. - ISBN 3360008383.
6. Sergei Snow.. - Verlag Neues Leben, 2006. - 608 p. - ISBN 3355017264, 978-3355017268.
7. Sergei Snow. Menschen wie Götter. - Heyne Verlag, 2010. - 608 p. - ISBN 3453525191.

Polish editions

1. Siergiej Sniegow.. - Iskry, 1972. - 540 p.
2. Siergiej Sniegow. Ludzie jak bogowie. - Współpraca, 1988. - ISBN 9788370180836.

Hungarian editions

1. Szergej Sznyegov.. - Budapest: Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, 1988. - ISBN 9631163032.

Japanese editions

1. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1983. - 417 p. - ISBN 4-488-68201-4.
2. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1984. - 398 p. - ISBN 4-488-68202-2.
3. セルゲイ・スニェーゴフ. . - 東京： 東京創元社, 1985. - 429 p. - ISBN 4-488-68203-0.

• The title of Snegov's work copies the title of H. G. Wells' novel "People Like Gods" () and echoes Clifford Simak's NF novel "" () and Kir Bulychev's collection of fantastic stories "" ().
• In the original version of the novel, earthlings lived much longer than our contemporaries, and matured more slowly. So, at the beginning of the first book, it was mentioned that Eli, Andre and Lusin are 57 years old, and Mary is 43. When shortening the text, Snegov abandoned this detail (for example, Mary in the shortened version is 23 years old).

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An excerpt characterizing People as gods (Snegov's novel)

A murmur arose from the crowd of waiting wounded.
“It can be seen that in the next world the masters live alone,” said one.
Prince Andrey was carried in and placed on a table that had just been cleared, from which the paramedic was rinsing something. Prince Andrei could not make out separately what was in the tent. Plaintive groans from all sides, excruciating pain in the thigh, abdomen and back entertained him. Everything that he saw around him merged for him into one general impression of a naked, bloody human body, which seemed to fill the entire low tent, just as a few weeks ago on this hot August day this same body filled a dirty pond along the Smolensk road. . Yes, it was the same body, the same chair a canon [meat for cannons], the sight of which even then, as if predicting the present, aroused horror in him.
There were three tables in the tent. Two were occupied, Prince Andrei was placed on the third. For some time he was left alone, and he involuntarily saw what was being done on the other two tables. A Tatar, probably a Cossack, was sitting on the near table, according to his uniform, which had been thrown beside him. Four soldiers held him. A doctor in glasses was cutting something in his brown, muscular back.
- Wow, wow, wow! .. - the Tatar seemed to be grunting, and suddenly, raising his cheeky black snub-nosed face upwards, baring his white teeth, he began to tear, twitch and squeal with a piercing ringing, drawn-out squeal. On another table, near which a lot of people were crowding, a large, plump man was lying on his back with his head thrown back (curly hair, its color and shape of the head seemed strangely familiar to Prince Andrei). Several paramedics fell on the man's chest and held him. A large, white, plump leg quickly and often, without ceasing, twitched with feverish flutters. This man sobbed convulsively and choked. Two doctors silently - one was pale and trembling - were doing something on the other, red leg of this man. Having dealt with the Tatar, who was thrown over his overcoat, the doctor in glasses, wiping his hands, went up to Prince Andrei. He looked into the face of Prince Andrei and hastily turned away.
- Undress! What are you standing for? he shouted angrily at the paramedics.
The very first distant childhood was remembered by Prince Andrei, when the paramedic, with his hastily rolled up hands, unbuttoned his buttons and took off his dress. The doctor bent low over the wound, felt it, and sighed heavily. Then he made a sign to someone. And the excruciating pain inside the abdomen made Prince Andrei lose consciousness. When he woke up, the broken bones of the thigh were taken out, shreds of meat were cut off, and the wound was bandaged. They threw water in his face. As soon as Prince Andrei opened his eyes, the doctor bent over him, silently kissed him on the lips, and hurried away.
After suffering, Prince Andrei felt bliss that he had not experienced for a long time. All the best, happiest moments in his life, especially the most remote childhood, when they undressed him and put him to bed, when his nurse sang over him, lulling him to sleep, when, burying his head in imagination, not even as the past, but as reality.
Near that wounded man, whose head outlines seemed familiar to Prince Andrei, the doctors fussed; lifted him up and calmed him down.
– Show me… Oooooh! O! ooooh! - heard his groan interrupted by sobs, frightened and resigned to suffering. Listening to these moans, Prince Andrei wanted to cry. Is it because he was dying without glory, because it was a pity for him to part with his life, or because of these irretrievable childhood memories, or because he suffered, that others suffered, and this man groaned so pitifully before him, but he wanted to cry childish, kind, almost joyful tears.
The wounded man was shown a severed leg in a boot with gore.
- ABOUT! Oooooh! he sobbed like a woman. The doctor, who was standing in front of the wounded man, blocking his face, moved away.
- My God! What is this? Why is he here? Prince Andrew said to himself.
In the unfortunate, sobbing, exhausted man, whose leg had just been taken away, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. They held Anatole in their arms and offered him water in a glass, the rim of which he could not catch with his trembling, swollen lips. Anatole sobbed heavily. “Yes, it is; yes, this person is somehow closely and heavily connected with me, thought Prince Andrei, not yet clearly understanding what was before him. - What is the connection of this person with my childhood, with my life? he asked himself, finding no answer. And suddenly a new, unexpected memory from the world of childhood, pure and loving, presented itself to Prince Andrei. He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the ball of 1810, with a slender neck and slender arms, with a frightened, happy face ready for delight, and love and tenderness for her, even more alive and stronger than ever, woke up in his soul. He remembered now the connection that existed between him and this man, through the tears that filled his swollen eyes, looking at him dully. Prince Andrei remembered everything, and enthusiastic pity and love for this man filled his happy heart.
Prince Andrei could no longer restrain himself and wept tender, loving tears over people, over himself and over their and his own delusions.
“Compassion, love for brothers, for those who love, love for those who hate us, love for enemies - yes, that love that God preached on earth, which Princess Mary taught me and which I did not understand; that's why I felt sorry for life, that's what was left for me, if I were alive. But now it's too late. I know it!"

The terrible sight of the battlefield, covered with corpses and wounded, combined with the heaviness of the head and the news of the dead and wounded of twenty familiar generals, and with the consciousness of one’s powerlessness before strong hand made an unexpected impression on Napoleon, who usually liked to look at the dead and wounded, thereby testing his spiritual strength (as he thought). On this day, the terrible view of the battlefield defeated that spiritual strength in which he believed his merit and greatness. He hurriedly left the battlefield and returned to the Shevardinsky barrow. Yellow, swollen, heavy, with cloudy eyes, a red nose and a hoarse voice, he sat on a folding chair, involuntarily listening to the sounds of firing and not raising his eyes. With painful anguish, he awaited the end of the cause, which he considered himself the cause of, but which he could not stop. Personal human feeling for a brief moment prevailed over that artificial phantom of life that he had served for so long. He endured the suffering and death that he saw on the battlefield. The heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not want for himself either Moscow, or victory, or glory. (What more fame did he need?) The only thing he wanted now was rest, peace and freedom. But when he was at Semyonovskaya height, the chief of artillery suggested that he put several batteries on these heights in order to increase fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo. Napoleon agreed and ordered that news be brought to him about what effect these batteries would produce.
The adjutant came to say that, by order of the emperor, two hundred guns were aimed at the Russians, but that the Russians were still standing.
“Our fire is tearing them out in rows, and they are standing,” said the adjutant.
- Ils en veulent encore! .. [They still want to! ..] - Napoleon said in a hoarse voice.
– Sire? [Sovereign?] - repeated the adjutant, who did not listen.
“Ils en veulent encore,” Napoleon croaked in a hoarse voice, frowning, “donnez leur en. [If you want more, well, ask them.]
And without his order, what he wanted was done, and he ordered it only because he thought that orders were expected from him. And he was again transferred to his former artificial world phantoms of some grandeur, and again (like that horse walking on a sloping drive wheel imagines that it is doing something for itself) he dutifully began to fulfill that cruel, sad and heavy, inhuman role that was intended for him.
And not for this hour and day alone, the mind and conscience of this man were darkened, who, heavier than all the other participants in this work, bore the whole burden of what was being done; but never, until the end of his life, he could understand neither goodness, nor beauty, nor truth, nor the significance of his actions, which were too opposed to goodness and truth, too far from everything human, so that he could understand their significance. He could not renounce his actions, praised by half the world, and therefore had to renounce truth and goodness and everything human.
Not only on this day, going around the battlefield, laid by dead and mutilated people (as he thought, by his will), he, looking at these people, counted how many Russians there are for one Frenchman, and, deceiving himself, found reasons to rejoice that there were five Russians for one Frenchman. Not on that one day alone did he write in a letter to Paris that le champ de bataille a ete superbe [the battlefield was magnificent] because there were fifty thousand corpses on it; but also on St. Helena, in the quiet of solitude, where he said that he intended to devote his leisure time to the presentation of the great deeds that he had done, he wrote:
"La guerre de Russie eut du etre la plus populaire des temps modernes: c" etait celle du bon sens et des vrais interets, celle du repos et de la securite de tous; elle etait purement pacifique et conservatrice.
C "etait pour la grande cause, la fin des hasards elle commencement de la securite. Un nouvel horizon, de nouveaux travaux allaient se derouler, tout plein du bien etre et de la prosperite de tous. Le systeme europeen se trouvait fonde; il n "etait plus question que de l" organizer.
Satisfait sur ces grands points et tranquille partout, j "aurais eu aussi mon congres et ma sainte alliance. Ce sont des idees qu" on m "a volees. Dans cette reunion de grands souverains, nous eussions traites de nos interets en famille et compte de clerc a maitre avec les peuples.
L "Europe n" eut bientot fait de la sorte veritablement qu "un meme peuple, et chacun, en voyageant partout, se fut trouve toujours dans la patrie commune. Il eut demande toutes les rivieres navigables pour tous, la communaute des mers, et que les grandes armees permanentes fussent reduites desormais a la seule garde des souverains.
De retour en France, au sein de la patrie, grande, forte, magnifique, tranquille, glorieuse, j "eusse proclame ses limites immuables; toute guerre future, purement defensive; tout agrandissement nouveau antinational. J" eusse associe mon fils a l "Empire ; ma dictature eut fini, et son regne constitutionnel eut commencement…
Paris eut ete la capitale du monde, et les Francais l "envie des nations! ..
Mes loisirs ensuite et mes vieux jours eussent ete consacres, en compagnie de l "imperatrice et durant l" apprentissage royal de mon fils, a visiter lentement et en vrai couple campagnard, avec nos propres chevaux, tous les recoins de l "Empire, recevant les plaintes, redressant les torts, semant de toutes parts et partout les monuments et les bienfaits.
The Russian war should have been the most popular in modern times: it was a war of common sense and real benefits, a war of peace and security for all; she was purely peaceful and conservative.
It was for a great purpose, for the end of accidents and the beginning of peace. A new horizon, new works would open, full of well-being and well-being for all. The European system would be founded, the question would be only in its establishment.
Satisfied in these great questions and at peace everywhere, I too would have my congress and my holy union. These are the thoughts that have been stolen from me. In this assembly of great sovereigns, we would discuss our interests as a family and would reckon with the peoples, like a scribe with a master.
Indeed, Europe would soon constitute one and the same people, and everyone, traveling anywhere, would always be in a common homeland.
I would say that all rivers should be navigable for everyone, that the sea should be common, that permanent, large armies should be reduced to the sole guard of sovereigns, etc.
Returning to France, to my homeland, great, strong, magnificent, calm, glorious, I would proclaim its borders unchanged; any future defensive war; any new distribution is anti-national; I would add my son to the reign of the empire; my dictatorship would end, his constitutional rule would begin...
Paris would be the capital of the world and the French would be the envy of all nations!...
Then my leisure and last days would have been dedicated, with the help of the empress and during the royal education of my son, to visit little by little, like a real village couple, on their own horses, all corners of the state, receiving complaints, eliminating injustices, scattering buildings in all directions and everywhere, and beneficence.]
He, destined by providence for the sad, unfree role of the executioner of peoples, assured himself that the goal of his actions was the good of the peoples and that he could direct the destinies of millions and, through power, do good deeds!
“Des 400,000 hommes qui passerent la Vistule,” he wrote further on the Russian war, “la moitie etait Autrichiens, Prussiens, Saxons, Polonais, Bavarois, Wurtembergeois, Mecklembourgeois, Espagnols, Italiens, Napolitains. L "armee imperiale, proprement dite, etait pour un tiers composee de Hollandais, Belges, habitants des bords du Rhin, Piemontais, Suisses, Genevois, Toscans, Romains, habitants de la 32 e division militaire, Breme, Hambourg, etc .; elle comptait a peine 140000 hommes parlant francais. L "expedition do Russie couta moins de 50000 hommes a la France actuelle; l "armee russe dans la retraite de Wilna a Moscou, dans les differentes batailles, a perdu quatre fois plus que l" armee francaise; l "incendie de Moscou a coute la vie a 100000 Russes, morts de froid et de misere dans les bois; enfin dans sa marche de Moscou a l" Oder, l "armee russe fut aussi atteinte par, l" intemperie de la saison; elle ne comptait a son arrivee a Wilna que 50,000 hommes, et a Kalisch moins de 18,000.”
[Of the 400,000 people who crossed the Vistula, half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wirtembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians and Neapolitans. The imperial army, in fact, was composed of a third of the Dutch, Belgians, inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevans, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the 32nd military division, Bremen, Hamburg, etc .; there were hardly 140,000 French-speaking people in it. The Russian expedition cost France proper less than 50,000 men; the Russian army in the retreat from Vilna to Moscow in various battles lost four times more than the French army; the fire of Moscow cost the lives of 100,000 Russians who died of cold and poverty in the forests; finally, during its transition from Moscow to the Oder, the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; upon arrival in Vilna, it consisted of only 50,000 people, and in Kalisz less than 18,000.]
He imagined that by his will there was a war with Russia, and the horror of what had happened did not strike his soul. He boldly accepted the full responsibility of the event, and his clouded mind saw the justification in the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of dead people there were fewer French than Hessians and Bavarians.

Several tens of thousands of people lay dead in various positions and uniforms in the fields and meadows that belonged to the Davydovs and state peasants, in those fields and meadows where for hundreds of years the peasants of the villages of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardin and Semenovsky had simultaneously harvested and grazed cattle. At the dressing stations for the tithe, the grass and earth were saturated with blood. Crowds of wounded and unwounded different teams of people, with frightened faces, on the one hand wandered back to Mozhaisk, on the other hand - back to Valuev. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, led by the chiefs, went forward. Others stood still and continued to shoot.
Over the whole field, formerly so cheerfully beautiful, with its sparkles of bayonets and smoke in the morning sun, there was now a haze of dampness and smoke and smelled of a strange acid of saltpeter and blood. Clouds gathered, and it began to rain on the dead, on the wounded, on the frightened, and on the exhausted, and on the doubting people. It was like he was saying, “Enough, enough, people. Stop... Come to your senses. What are you doing?"
Exhausted, without food and without rest, the people of both sides began to equally doubt whether they should still exterminate each other, and hesitation was noticeable on all faces, and in every soul the question was equally raised: “Why, for whom should I kill and be killed? Kill whoever you want, do whatever you want, and I don't want any more!" By the evening this thought had equally matured in the soul of everyone. Any minute all these people could be horrified by what they were doing, drop everything and run anywhere.
But although by the end of the battle people felt the full horror of their act, although they would have been glad to stop, some kind of incomprehensible, mysterious force still continued to guide them, and, sweaty, in gunpowder and blood, remaining one by three, artillerymen, although and stumbling and choking with fatigue, they brought charges, charged, directed, applied wicks; and the cannonballs flew just as quickly and cruelly from both sides and flattened human body, and that terrible deed continued to be done, which is done not by the will of people, but by the will of the one who leads people and worlds.
Anyone who would look at the upset behinds of the Russian army would say that the French should make one more small effort, and the Russian army will disappear; and whoever looked at the backs of the French would say that the Russians had to make one more small effort and the French would perish. But neither the French nor the Russians made this effort, and the flames of the battle slowly burned out.
The Russians did not make this effort because they did not attack the French. At the beginning of the battle, they only stood on the road to Moscow, blocking it, and in the same way they continued to stand at the end of the battle, as they stood at the beginning of it. But even if the goal of the Russians were to knock down the French, they could not make this last effort, because all the Russian troops were defeated, there was not a single part of the troops that did not suffer in the battle, and the Russians, remaining in their places lost half of their troops.
The French, with the memory of all the previous fifteen years of victories, with confidence in the invincibility of Napoleon, with the consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield, that they had lost only one quarter of the people and that they still had twenty thousand intact guards, it was easy to make this effort. The French, who attacked the Russian army with the aim of knocking it out of position, had to make this effort, because as long as the Russians, just like before the battle, blocked the road to Moscow, the goal of the French was not achieved and all their efforts and losses were wasted. But the French made no such effort. Some historians say that Napoleon should have given his old guard intact in order for the battle to be won. To talk about what would happen if Napoleon gave his guards is like talking about what would happen if spring became autumn. It couldn't be. It was not Napoleon who did not give his guard, because he did not want to, but this could not be done. All the generals, officers, soldiers of the French army knew that this could not be done, because the fallen morale of the troops did not allow it.
Not only Napoleon experienced that dream-like feeling that the terrible swing of the arm falls powerlessly, but all the generals, all the soldiers of the French army participating and not participating, after all the experiences of previous battles (where, after ten times less effort, the enemy fled), experienced the same feeling of horror before that enemy, who, having lost half of his army, stood just as formidably at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral strength of the French attacking army was exhausted. Not that victory, which is determined by picked up pieces of matter on sticks, called banners, and by the space on which the troops stood and are standing, but a moral victory, one that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his enemy and of his impotence, was won by the Russians under Borodin. The French invasion, like an angry beast that received a mortal wound in its run, felt its death; but it could not stop, just as the weakest Russian army could not but deviate. After this push, the French army could still reach Moscow; but there, without new efforts on the part of the Russian army, it was to die, bleeding from a fatal wound inflicted at Borodino. A direct consequence of the battle of Borodino was Napoleon's unreasonable flight from Moscow, his return along the old Smolensk road, the death of a five hundred thousandth invasion and the death of Napoleonic France, which for the first time near Borodino was laid down by the strongest enemy in spirit.

Absolute continuity of movement is incomprehensible to the human mind. The laws of any kind of movement become clear to a person only when he considers arbitrarily taken units of this movement. But at the same time, from this arbitrary division of continuous movement into discontinuous units, a large part of human delusions arise.
The so-called sophism of the ancients is known, which consists in the fact that Achilles will never catch up with the tortoise walking in front, despite the fact that Achilles walks ten times faster than the tortoise: as soon as Achilles passes the space separating him from the tortoise, the tortoise will pass ahead of him one tenth of this space; Achilles will go through this tenth, the tortoise will go through one hundredth, and so on ad infinitum. This problem seemed unsolvable to the ancients. The senselessness of the decision (that Achilles will never overtake the tortoise) stemmed from the fact that discontinuous units of movement were arbitrarily allowed, while the movement of both Achilles and the tortoise was continuous.
By accepting smaller and smaller units of motion, we only get closer to the solution of the problem, but we never reach it. Only by assuming an infinitesimal value and a progression ascending from it up to one tenth and taking the sum of this geometric progression, we reach the solution of the problem. The new branch of mathematics, having achieved the art of dealing with infinitesimal quantities, and in other more complex questions of motion, now provides answers to questions that seemed unsolvable.
This new, unknown to the ancients, branch of mathematics, when considering questions of motion, admitting infinitely small quantities, that is, those at which the main condition of motion (absolute continuity) is restored, thereby corrects that inevitable mistake that the human mind cannot but make when considering instead of continuous movement, individual units of movement.
Exactly the same thing happens in the search for the laws of historical movement.
The movement of mankind, arising from the innumerable number of human arbitrariness, takes place continuously.
Comprehension of the laws of this movement is the goal of history. But in order to comprehend the laws of the continuous movement of the sum of all the arbitrariness of people, the human mind admits arbitrary, discontinuous units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrary series of continuous events and consider it separately from others, while there is not and cannot be the beginning of any event, but always one event continuously follows from another. The second trick is to consider the action of one person, the king, the commander, as the sum of the arbitrariness of people, while the sum of the arbitrariness of people is never expressed in the activity of one historical person.
Historical science in its movement constantly accepts smaller and smaller units for consideration, and in this way strives to approach the truth. But no matter how small the units that history accepts, we feel that the assumption of a unit separated from another, the assumption of the beginning of some phenomenon, and the assumption that the arbitrariness of all people are expressed in the actions of one historical person, are false in themselves.
Any conclusion of history, without the slightest effort on the part of criticism, falls apart like dust, leaving nothing behind, only as a result of the fact that criticism chooses a larger or smaller discontinuous unit as the object of observation; to which it always has the right, since the historical unit taken is always arbitrary.
Only by allowing an infinitely small unit for observation - the differential of history, that is, the homogeneous inclinations of people, and having achieved the art of integrating (taking the sums of these infinitesimal ones), can we hope to comprehend the laws of history.
The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe represent an extraordinary movement of millions of people. People leave their usual occupations, rush from one side of Europe to the other, rob, kill one another, triumph and despair, and the whole course of life changes for several years and represents an intensified movement, which at first goes on increasing, then weakening. What is the reason for this movement or according to what laws did it occur? asks the human mind.
Historians, answering this question, describe to us the deeds and speeches of several dozen people in one of the buildings of the city of Paris, calling these deeds and speeches the word revolution; then they give a detailed biography of Napoleon and some persons sympathetic and hostile to him, talk about the influence of some of these persons on others, and say: this is why this movement came about, and these are its laws.
But the human mind not only refuses to believe in this explanation, but directly says that the method of explanation is not correct, because in this explanation the weakest phenomenon is taken as the cause of the strongest. The sum of human arbitrariness made both the revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of these arbitrariness endured and destroyed them.
“But whenever there were conquests, there were conquerors; whenever there were coups in the state, there were great people,” says history. Indeed, whenever there were conquerors, there were also wars, the human mind replies, but this does not prove that the conquerors were the causes of wars and that it was possible to find the laws of war in the personal activity of one person. Whenever, looking at my watch, I see that the hand has approached ten, I hear that the evangelization is beginning in the neighboring church, but from the fact that every time the hand comes to ten o'clock when the evangelization begins, I I have no right to conclude that the position of the arrow is the cause of the movement of the bells.
Every time I see a locomotive move, I hear a whistle sound, I see a valve opening and wheels moving; but from this I have no right to conclude that the whistling and the movement of the wheels are the causes of the movement of the locomotive.
The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oak bud unfolds, and indeed, every spring a cold wind blows when the oak unfolds. But although I do not know the cause of the cold wind blowing during the unfolding of the oak, I cannot agree with the peasants that the cause of the cold wind is the unfolding of the bud of the oak, simply because the force of the wind is beyond the influence of the bud. I see only the coincidence of those conditions that exist in every life phenomenon, and I see that, no matter how much and no matter how detailed I observe the hand of the clock, the valve and wheels of the steam locomotive and the bud of the oak, I will not recognize the cause of the blagovest, the movement of the steam locomotive and the spring wind. . To do this, I must completely change my point of observation and study the laws of motion of steam, bells and wind. History should do the same. And attempts to do so have already been made.
In order to study the laws of history, we must completely change the object of observation, leave the kings, ministers and generals alone, and study the homogeneous, infinitesimal elements that guide the masses. No one can say how far it is given to a person to achieve understanding of the laws of history by this way; but it is obvious that on this path only lies the possibility of capturing historical laws, and that on this path the human mind has not yet put one millionth of the effort that historians have put into describing the deeds of various kings, generals and ministers and to presenting their considerations on the occasion of these deeds. .

The forces of the twelve languages ​​of Europe broke into Russia. The Russian army and the population retreat, avoiding a collision, to Smolensk and from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army, with an ever-increasing strength of swiftness, rushes towards Moscow, towards the goal of its movement. The strength of its swiftness, approaching the target, increases like an increase in the speed of a falling body as it approaches the earth. Behind a thousand miles of a hungry, hostile country; dozens of miles ahead, separating from the goal. This is felt by every soldier of the Napoleonic army, and the invasion is advancing of itself, by the force of swiftness alone.
As the Russian army retreats, the spirit of anger against the enemy flares up more and more: retreating back, it concentrates and grows. A collision occurs near Borodino. Neither army disintegrates, but the Russian army immediately after the collision retreats just as necessarily as a ball rolls back, colliding with another ball rushing at it with greater swiftness; and just as necessary (although having lost all its strength in the collision), the rapidly scattered ball of invasion rolls over some more space.
The Russians retreat a hundred and twenty miles - beyond Moscow, the French reach Moscow and stop there. For five weeks after that there is not a single battle. The French don't move. Like a mortally wounded animal, which, bleeding, licks its wounds, they remain in Moscow for five weeks, doing nothing, and suddenly, for no new reason, they run back: they rush to the Kaluga road (and after the victory, since again the battlefield remained behind them near Maloyaroslavets), without entering into a single serious battle, they flee even faster back to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond Vilna, beyond the Berezina and beyond.
On the evening of August 26, both Kutuzov and the entire Russian army were sure that the Battle of Borodino had been won. Kutuzov wrote to the sovereign in this way. Kutuzov ordered to prepare for a new battle in order to finish off the enemy, not because he wanted to deceive anyone, but because he knew that the enemy was defeated, just as each of the participants in the battle knew it.
But that same evening and the next day, news began to come, one after another, of unheard-of losses, of the loss of half of the army, and a new battle turned out to be physically impossible.
It was impossible to fight when information had not yet been collected, the wounded had not been removed, the shells had not been replenished, the dead had not been counted, new commanders had not been appointed to the places of the dead, people had not eaten and had not slept.
And at the same time, immediately after the battle, on the next morning, the French army (according to that impetuous force of movement, now increased, as it were, in the inverse ratio of the squares of distances) was already advancing of itself on the Russian army. Kutuzov wanted to attack the next day, and the whole army wanted it. But in order to attack, the desire to do so is not enough; It is necessary that there was an opportunity to do this, but there was no such opportunity. It was impossible not to retreat one march, then just as it was impossible not to retreat to another and a third march, and finally on September 1, when the army approached Moscow, despite all the strength of the rising feeling in the ranks of the troops, the force of things demanded in order for these troops to go beyond Moscow. And the troops retreated one more, to the last crossing and gave Moscow to the enemy.
For those people who are used to thinking that plans for wars and battles are drawn up by generals in the same way that each of us, sitting in his office over a map, makes considerations about how and how he would dispose of such and such a battle, questions arise why Kutuzov did not do this and that during the retreat, why he did not take up position before Filey, why he did not immediately retreat to the Kaluga road, left Moscow, etc. People who are used to thinking this way forget or do not know those inevitable conditions in which the activity of any commander-in-chief always takes place. The activity of a commander has not the slightest resemblance to the activity that we imagine sitting freely in an office, analyzing some campaign on the map with a known number of troops, on either side, and in a certain area, and starting our considerations from what some famous moment. The Commander-in-Chief is never in those conditions of the beginning of some kind of event, in which we always consider the event. The Commander-in-Chief is always in the middle of a moving series of events, and in such a way that he is never, at any moment, in a position to consider the full significance of an ongoing event. The event is imperceptibly, moment by moment, cut into its meaning, and at every moment of this consistent, continuous cutting of the event, the commander-in-chief is in the center of the most complex game, intrigues, worries, dependence, power, projects, advice, threats, deceptions, is constantly in the need to respond to the innumerable number of questions put to him, always contradicting one another.
We are seriously told by military scientists that Kutuzov, much earlier than Filey, had to move troops to the Kaluga road, that even someone proposed such a project. But in front of the commander in chief, especially in difficult times, there is not one project, but always dozens at the same time. And each of these projects, based on strategy and tactics, contradicts one another. The business of the commander-in-chief, it would seem, is only to choose one of these projects. But he cannot do that either. Events and time do not wait. He is offered, let's say, on the 28th to go to the Kaluga road, but at that time Miloradovich's adjutant jumps up and asks whether to start a deal with the French now or retreat. He needs now, this minute, to give the order. And the order to retreat knocks us off the turn onto the Kaluga road. And following the adjutant, the quartermaster asks where to take provisions, and the head of hospitals - where to take the wounded; and a courier from St. Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign, which does not allow the possibility of leaving Moscow, and the rival of the commander-in-chief, the one who undermines him (there are always such, and not one, but several), proposes a new project, diametrically opposed to the plan for entering the Kaluga road; and the forces of the commander-in-chief himself require sleep and reinforcements; and the venerable general, who has been bypassed by the award, comes to complain, and the inhabitants plead for protection; an officer sent to inspect the area arrives and reports the exact opposite of what the sent officer said before him; and the scout, the prisoner, and the reconnaissance general all describe the position of the enemy army in different ways. People who are used to not understanding or forgetting these the necessary conditions activities of any commander-in-chief, they present us, for example, the situation of the troops in Fili and at the same time assume that the commander-in-chief could completely freely resolve the issue of abandoning or defending Moscow on September 1, whereas with the position of the Russian army five miles from Moscow, this issue could not be . When was this issue resolved? And near Drissa, and near Smolensk, and most palpably on the 24th near Shevardin, and on the 26th near Borodino, and every day, and hour, and minute of retreat from Borodino to Fili.

Russian troops, retreating from Borodin, stood at Filey. Yermolov, who had traveled to inspect the position, drove up to the field marshal.
“There is no way to fight in this position,” he said. Kutuzov looked at him in surprise and made him repeat the words he had said. When he spoke, Kutuzov held out his hand to him.
“Give me your hand,” he said, and turning it so as to feel his pulse, he said: “You are not well, my dear. Think what you are saying.
Kutuzov, on Poklonnaya Gora, six versts from the Dorogomilovskaya outpost, got out of the carriage and sat down on a bench on the edge of the road. A huge crowd of generals gathered around him. Count Rostopchin, having arrived from Moscow, joined them. All this brilliant society, divided into several circles, talked among themselves about the advantages and disadvantages of the position, about the position of the troops, about the proposed plans, about the state of Moscow, and about military questions in general. Everyone felt that although they were not called to the fact that although it was not called that, but that it was a council of war. The conversations were all kept in the area of ​​general questions. If anyone reported or learned personal news, then it was said in a whisper, and immediately turned again to general questions: no jokes, no laughter, no smiles were even noticeable between all these people. Everyone, obviously, with an effort, tried to keep to the height of the situation. And all the groups, talking among themselves, tried to stay close to the commander-in-chief (whose shop was the center of these circles) and spoke so that he could hear them. The commander-in-chief listened and sometimes asked again what was said around him, but he himself did not enter into a conversation and did not express any opinion. For the most part, after listening to the conversation of some circle, he turned away with an air of disappointment - as if they were talking about something completely different from what he wanted to know. Some spoke about the chosen position, criticizing not so much the position itself as mental capacity those who chose her; others argued that the mistake had been made earlier, that it was necessary to accept the battle on the third day; still others talked about the battle of Salamanca, about which the Frenchman Crosar, who had just arrived, in a Spanish uniform, spoke about. (This Frenchman, together with one of the German princes who served in the Russian army, sorted out the siege of Saragossa, foreseeing the opportunity to defend Moscow in the same way.) In the fourth circle, Count Rostopchin said that he and the Moscow squad were ready to die under the walls of the capital, but that everything nevertheless, he cannot but regret the uncertainty in which he was left, and that if he had known this before, it would have been different ... Fifths, showing the depth of their strategic considerations, spoke about the direction that the troops would have to take. The sixth spoke complete nonsense. Kutuzov's face became more preoccupied and sadder. Of all the conversations of these Kutuzov saw one thing: there was no physical possibility to defend Moscow in full meaning these words, that is, to such an extent there was no possibility that if some insane commander in chief gave the order to give battle, confusion would occur and there would still be no battle; it would not be because all the top leaders not only recognized this position as impossible, but in their conversations discussed only what would happen after the undoubted abandonment of this position. How could the commanders lead their troops on the battlefield, which they considered impossible? The lower commanders, even the soldiers (who also reason), also recognized the position as impossible and therefore could not go to fight with the certainty of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on defending this position and others were still discussing it, then this question no longer mattered in itself, but mattered only as a pretext for dispute and intrigue. Kutuzov understood this.

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Galactic Intelligence (1966)[ | ]

The story is told in the first person, like the memoirs of Eli Gamazin, a former Starfleet Admiral.

Turned to science fiction. I wanted to write something that no one can object to. I gathered my relatives and friends and committed such hooliganism with them: I transferred them five hundred years into the future ... This is how the novel “People Are Like Gods” appeared.

There was another reason why I turned to science fiction. The fact is that in the West this literature is tragic. She describes our future as a realm of monsters. I wrote a novel about the bright future of mankind.

The publishing fate of the novel was not easy - it was rejected in a row by four publishing houses. The first book of the novel was first published in the science fiction collection Lenizdat "Hellenic Secret" in 1966 under the name "People are like gods". The second book came out two years later in a collection by the same publisher called "In the Starry Hollows"(wherein "Invasion of Perseus" was the title of the first part of the second book and the collection itself). In 1971, in Kaliningrad, the first two books of the novel were published as a separate volume in a slightly modified edition, and the first book received the title "Galactic Intelligence". In the 1970s, the third book of the novel was written, published in 1977. Finally, in 1982, all three books were collected in one volume, while the text of the novel was significantly reduced by the author (especially the first two books, which decreased by more than 15 percent) to bring its length in line with the requirements of the publisher.

The novel was translated into foreign languages ​​and published in Germany, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, Spain, France.

List of publications [ | ]

Russian editions [ | ]

1. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods Hellenic secret / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L. : Lenizdat, 1966. - S. 22-304. - 518 p. - 65,000 copies.
2. Sergey Snegov. In the stellar gorges. // Invasion of Perseus / Comp. and ed. foreword E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1968. - S. 32-305. - 469 p. - 100,000 copies.
3. Sergey Snegov. People are like gods. - Kaliningrad: Kaliningrad book publishing house, 1971. - 464 p. - 30,000 copies.
4. Sergey Snegov. Reverse Time Ring // Ring of reverse time / Comp. and ed. intro. Art. E. Brandis, V. Dmitrevsky. - L.: Lenizdat, 1977. - S. 11-270. - 639 p. - 100,000 copies.
5. Sergey Snegov.