Robert Silverberg 22 min read

Chained in the jetroom of an orbiting satellite among a gang of doomed men, one prisoner realizes the real danger is aboard with them.

Robert Silverberg's 1958 story opens on the beautiful, indifferent view of Earth from Satellite V2-ZF, where Dave Conroy and a half-dozen shackled unfortunates are welcomed to hard labor by a sneering major, and to a threat none of them saw coming. Tight, atmospheric early-Silverberg suspense. Read it for claustrophobic golden-age tension in Earth orbit, from a writer just hitting his stride.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

22 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).