Lester Del Rey 16 min read

A driven reporter chases a story that would set him free, but there is nothing, especially on Earth, that can do that, least of all the truth.

Lester del Rey's 1956 story coils tension around Dane Phillips, a man whose obsessive investigation edges toward a first-contact revelation. Sharp, suspenseful golden-age SF from a master. Read it for a taut tale about a haunted man, a story he can't let go, and where it finally leads.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

16 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Dick Francis