George O. Smith 1 hr 5 min read

When the space-relay station Venus Equilateral holds a monopoly on power transmission, a resentful schemer looks for a way to break it.

George O. Smith's 1944 story continues his beloved Venus Equilateral series, pitting the nerve-wracked Mark Kingman against the station whose solar-beam success was a fluke of nature and the Channing Layer. Sharp, engineering-minded golden-age SF from a genuine communications man. Read it for clever hard SF about power, patents, and the technology of the spaceways.

In its time

Published in 1944, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

1 hr 5 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Newton H. Alfred