H. B. Fyfe 29 min read

A retired space captain turned arbitrator lands near an aboriginal village to untangle a very human mess, far out past Rigel.

H. B. Fyfe's 1958 story sets down Judge Louis Mayne and his careful pilot on Kappa Orionis VII, where the touchy, fishing-and-foraging natives and the thin reach of Space Force law make every dispute a delicate one. Easygoing, competent-people space opera about frontier diplomacy at the edge of settled space. Read it for genial golden-age SF about sorting out trouble where there's barely any law to help.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen