While planet Earth poises on the brink of nuclear self-destruction, a team of Russian and American scientists aboard the Leonov hurtles to a rendezvous with the still-orbiting Discovery spacecraft and its sole known survivor, the homicidal computer HAL.

A Russian circus visits the US. A clown wants to defect, but doesn't have the nerve. His saxophone playing friend however comes to the decision to defect in the middle of Bloomingdales. He is befriended by the black security guard and falls in love with the Italian immigrant from behind the perfume counter. We follow his life as he works his way through the American dream and tries to find work as a musician.

An aging agent is called back by "the Company" to run a hostage trade of a Soviet spy for an American agent.

A young nurse, Nastya, on the eve of her successful marriage to the man she loves, a prosperous doctor, has doubts dictated by her desire to assert herself.