Midday

Story

The earth has become the epitome of a humanistic utopia. Rudolf Sikorsky, the head of the Commission for Contacts with Extraterrestrial Civilizations, instructs Maxim Kammerer to find Lev Abalkin, a progressive who mysteriously disappeared after contact with the supercivilization of the Wanderers. Abalkin's group explored the planet Nadezhda, which perished as a result of a monstrous experiment conducted there by the Wanderers. After contacting them, Abalkin kills his partner and flies to Earth to start a process similar to the one that destroyed Nadezhda. Kammerer manages to get on Abalkin's trail, but he is always one step ahead of him.

Based on the novel Beetle in the Anthill by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (1979)
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