The novel “Orphans of the Sky” by Robert A. Heinlein was published for the first time in 1941 as two novellas titled “Universe” and “Common Sense” in the magazine “Astounding Science Fiction” and in 1963 as a book.

Hugh Hoyland was able to be admitted among the scientist apprentices. Like other young people, he refuses certain mystical interpretations of the older generation about the Trip. His ideas are turned upside down when he’s captured by a group of mutants and meets Joe-Jim, the most important of their leaders, a man with two heads.

Joe-Jim brings Hugh to places he had never seen before and forces him to get into central control, where he shows him the universe outside the Ship. For Hugh it’s a big trauma because his people think that the Ship is the universe. His discovery changes everything but how to convince the scientists without being taken for a heretic and killed?