The lyrical “I” on behalf of whom the narration is being conducted is “mimorob”, an unnamed engineer serving Mima - a machine that reproduces sensual images captured from the most remote corners of the Universe. Mimorob and Mima, together with eight thousand passengers and crew, are aboard the Goldair Aniar, who makes the usual flight from Doris (the former Earth) to the Planet Tundra (now called the Mars in the forty-third century). Goldonder’s flight ends in disaster. Turning cool and avoiding the collision with an asteroid, Aniara falls into a stream of stones. Maneuvering among them along a broken path, she loses control (the Saba-aggregate fails) and, having finally lost her course, rushes into the void in the direction of the unreachable constellation Lyra.
Fortunately, all the main nodes of the gold donder (“heat conduit, light guide and gravitational system”) are in order. Passed into apathy after a flood of panic and despair, passengers gradually come to their senses. Their situation is unenviable. They will have an “endless odyssey”: you can neither turn back, nor return, nor call for help, Aniara’s “loxodrome” speed is also not so fast that they could hope that during their lifetime, Aniara could reach the constellation to which it is directed nose.
Caught in a state of forced idleness, people are looking for something to do with themselves. Soon exotic religious sects emerged, a large part of the passengers and crew became “yurgopokolniki” (“yurg” - a dance), spending all their time in carnal pleasures. They are helped in this by the priestesses of love - “yurginis” Daisy, Yal, Tschebeba and Libidel. Pleasures (Mimorob also pays tribute to them - with Daisy) help to forget ... but not completely: the majority of the eight-thousandth population of Aniara (the size of the gold donder is huge, its length is 14,000 feet, its width is 8,000) prefers to spend time in the halls of Mima transmitting a stereoscopic picture happening on other planets and star systems - wherever life exists. Created by man, Mima has the ability to self-develop, moreover, she is endowed with consciousness and a certain degree of freedom - in any case, it is impossible to make her lie. Mima can only be turned off, with which the Aniari would not agree: the spectacles of other worlds, no matter how terrible and depressing they may be, but for the most part Mima conveys pictures of decay: he prevails in space - yet they distract the thoughts of passengers from their own fate.
But in the sixth year of the journey, Mima begins to transmit terrible visions of what is happening to Doris: the country of Gond burns down in the whirlwinds of the fiery “phototurbus”, then huge Dorisburg, the birthplace of Aniara, turns into boiling lava. Mima conveys to the passengers not only the “picture”, but also the feelings and thoughts of those who die on Earth: from the “thickness of the stone” the dead call to them - deafened by the explosion and blinded by a light flash. Now the Aniarians understand what the phrase “when the stones cry” means. Seen and heard for a long time paralyzes their will and desire to live. Mima also behaves strangely after the transmission: first, interference is detected in her work, then she needs repair and asks to turn it off, on the sixth day Mima tells Mimorob that she was blind and refuses to work: her consciousness is injured - Mima destroys herself.
From now on, people are completely alone. The last thread connecting them with the world is broken. It is not surprising that many Aniarians indulge in memories of the past. Mimorob, as if replacing Mima, draws up their internal monologues. In the most extensive monologue, the Space Sailor, who previously worked on transporting people from Doris to the Planet Tundra (there are now several zones on Mars called Tundra 1, Tundra 2, etc.), talks about his love for Nobby, a dedicated woman who helped to wretched and desperate people and who loved even the meager and stunted vegetation of the tundra and its animal world poisoned by metals. From monologues, it becomes clear what mechanized hell Doris Earth has turned into - the living flame of burning wood is shown to schoolchildren on it as an example of a very ancient curiosity. In the recollections of other passengers, as it were, by the way, the main milestones of the path traveled by mankind emerge: by the XXIII century "the brilliant kingdom of man / in the smoke of war shone dimmer / / the projects of the humanists failed, / and again had to dig trenches". Then a "bunch of stardust" shielded the Earth from the Sun for as many as 10 centuries, and a new era of glaciation began, science and art fell into disrepair, but did not disappear altogether, and after another dozen centuries the dust dissipated and the world was restored to its former splendor.
But he looks extremely inhuman. Traveling people to Mars is compelled: due to long wars of earthlings among themselves and with other planets, Doris is poisoned by radioactivity. In the space ports of Dorisburg, people are sorted, according to the testimony of their "psycho-punch cards." “Gond is bad” (that is, a man), and instead of the Planet Tundra they send him to the marshes of Venus, and there they put him in the “Mansions and Goals”, designed to painlessly kill their inhabitants. The Earth region of Gond, the refuge of fugitives from Dorisburg, is destroyed by the “phototurbo”. Apparently, by the order of the rulers of Doris, the planet Rind with its main city Xinombra was blown up: a naked slave captive from this city adorns the “flying garden” of Shefork, the sovereign commander of Aniara (and former commandant of the Needle Mansions), phantom “ xinombr ", like the furies of vengeance, haunt the Aniari in a dream. In general, the future of mankind appears on the pages of the poem as frighteningly cruel, blurry and chaotic - that's exactly what Aniara’s passengers remember. And yet, to them, languishing from the nonsense of being, he is desired, and they would give everything to come back.
Mimorob’s attempts to restore Mima are in vain. And as if in a laugh at the aspirations of the Aniari, an incredible event is happening right next to them - in the same direction as Aniara, a spear sweeps ahead of her! It was released by unknown. And it is not known for what purpose. But it sets a riddle to everyone - "a spear pierced everyone." It happened on the tenth year of travel. Aniarians now live in expectation of a miracle. But completely different surprises lie in wait for them: then they fall into an accumulation of cosmic dust causing panic on the ship (as a result, mirrors increasing the visual volume of the interiors are broken, and several “yurginis” are cut into their fragments), then a terrible feeling of endless falling into the well (and Mimorobu is worth a considerable effort to get them out of this state).
As it turns out, the most painful thing is the sense of the aimlessness of life. Shefork, the all-powerful leader of the flight, makes an attempt to overcome it in his own way: he establishes a cult of his personality, requiring the sacrifice of human victims. And what? He did not surprise Aniara's passengers with this: Mima fed them with more frightening spectacles, their fragments can be viewed again in the Mimorob partially restored by Mimorob. So twenty four years pass. By the end, many of Aniara’s inhabitants die a natural death. Among them is the terrible Shefork: making sure that his imperious claims do not touch his subjects at all, and finally crucifying several ministers of his own cult on four powerful magnets, he, in the past, is also a murderer, becomes on the eve of his death the most ordinary man in the street - the power is fed by inspired illusions that residents Aniars are not able to perceive in their special position. Mimorob sadly recalls his attempt to forget himself in the embrace of the absurd beauty Daisy (she had died long ago) and his love for Isagel, a female pilot who died of her own free will. Aniara's energy is running out. Settling around Mima, at her foot, the survivors, having gathered all their courage, “free time from space”.
