Charles L. Fontenay 28 min read

A small task force gathers in the red dusk of the Martian desert, fifty miles from Mars City, and one of them may be a spy.

Charles Fontenay's 1957 story finds Jonner huddled with his men in marsuits among the dunes above Syrtis Major, counting heads at a rendezvous and wondering whether the confident newcomer belongs. Taut, atmospheric colonial-military SF, rich with the twilight blue mist and iron-red wastes of a lived-in Mars. Read it for tense frontier intrigue on a convincingly realized red planet, from a dependable magazine craftsman.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

28 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller