J. Francis McComas 34 min read

A prison warden is recruited for the Mars project, though the officials insist, unconvincingly, that they don't expect to have criminals there.

J. Francis McComas's 1955 story sets Warden Halloran against a general and a committee chairman whose evasive briefing hints at exactly the trouble they deny. Sharp, dialogue-driven social SF. Read it for a wry golden-age tale about bureaucracy, crime, and the negligence that colonizing a planet can breed.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas