Path into the unknown:

Robby (p.19): A robot is a gift for a 50th birthday. It has no programming, but will learn by input from its environment. It becomes precocious but the suegra likes Robby, so there's no getting rid of it.

Meeting my Brother (p.55): An astronaut sacrifices his life to ignite a rocket that will melt the ice-bound Planet that HUmans will be able to inhabit. Another crew member sacrifices his identity so that an orphan boy can have his dream of having an astronaut for a brother be brought to life.

A Day of Wrath (p.87): The Otarks (too close to the Ozarks) are supreme at learning higher mathematics, but they also like to eat HUmans and each other. I never really got a clear image of what these extraterrestrials look like. A journalist goes on a tour of the forest where they have settled. The ranger assigned to escort him tries to get him to understand the severity of the situation but the journalist takes the tour as something of a vacation... to his detriment.

Emergency Case (p.107): A crew of astronauts is returning from a planet's exploration. One of them has brought a slug from the planet. Suddenly, a fly begins buzzing in the ear of a sleeping crew member. Impossible that a fly stows away on a spaceship. He catches it in his hand and goes to show his fellow crew members, but more flies begin to show up. When one is killed, the astronaut observes that new flies are crawling out of every cell of the dead fly. Soon, the air is black with these "flies." Something must be done; to think of these creatures multiplying on the Earth is frightening. But only one of the crew members realizes the utility of these creatures--too late!

Wanderers and Travelers (p.121): I may be wrong, but the septopods that the scientist and his daughter are marking...one of them takes a human shape and is talking to Masha and her father...but when the father figures it out, he tries to convince himself that he is unimpressed, and that the obviously superior race is too "superior" to bother with annihilating humans. Another unfinished-feeling story. (Is it a language issue?)

The Boy (p.161): a puzzling story...a boy in school knows way more about science and space than he has any reason to. A classmate of his tries to puzzle out the answer to this conundrum but the boy, who is a double of a boy born on a spaceflight, moves away before he can get the answers he craves. This feels unfinished.

The Purple Mummy (p.191): At a museum in Moscow, a purple mummy materializes that is the spit-and-image of a Leninsk' museum curator's wife. Moreover, a bust shows up that is the equivalent of another curator. Well, long story short, this alien society can make 3D printed copies of HUmans they've scanned, but they send them with tumors. ( )