The three novels included in this collection are united by the theme of space. Not the space of human dreams, in which brave astronauts easily conquer planet after planet in order to plant the banner of their native Earth on them. And not the Cosmos from the songs of our childhood. Harry Harrison's space is cruel. And those who work and live in it are not angels. In the novel “The Captive Universe,” these are the inhabitants of a space ark, victims of an experiment whose purpose was forgotten a long time ago, and the madman who conceived it controls the living from the world of the dead. In “Space Doctor”, these are the miraculously surviving officers of a starship that is in distress during a flight to Mars. This is a handful of aliens and earthlings from the novel “Rescue Ship” - creatures so different from each other that the rescue operation is ready to turn into a road to death.