Randall Garrett 29 min read

Atop a Manhattan tower, the glowing atom-symbol of Circum-Global Communications is both trademark and antenna, and it's about to broadcast something no one planned.

Randall Garrett's 1958 story opens on the shining hub of a global communications empire, its robot satellites circling like electrons, as an event beyond anyone's control approaches. Slick, technically confident space-opera-adjacent SF from a reliable pro. Read it for well-turned golden-age SF about the machinery of a wired world and what happens when it slips its leash.

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

Richard Kluga