Stanley Mullen 26 min read

A patched-up 'half-man' faces a resentful ticket agent who insists the company has been more than generous, and that his return passage is anything but assured.

Stanley Mullen's 1953 story opens in a tense spaceport office on Pluto, where a partly-mechanical castaway confronts bureaucratic contempt. Atmospheric, character-driven space opera with a poignant edge. Read it for a golden-age tale about a damaged spacer, corporate cruelty, and the fight to get home.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller