Robertson Osborne 54 min read

The maiden mission of Contact Incorporated brings a seasick linguist and five ex-Patrolmen to a fifth planet of Procyon.

Robertson Osborne's 1949 story rides the little Special Agent to the world of Azura, its nervous language expert floating dictionaries in free fall as the crew braces for first contact. Solid, characterful golden-age space opera about the professionals who make the first careful approach to a new world. Read it for competent-crew SF with a likable outsider at its center.

In its time

Published in 1949, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen