Charles L. Fontenay 33 min read

An enemy intelligence officer seizes a Mars-Titan freighter and keeps its three-man crew alive, not from mercy, but for their usefulness.

Charles Fontenay's 1955 story opens as the wolfish Captain Vebrug takes the By Jove!, planning to brainwash its merchant spacemen into loyal tools for his undermanned base. Taut, morally cold space opera about capture, control, and resistance. Read it for tense golden-age SF about three ordinary men under a ruthless captor's thumb.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban