Alan Edward Nourse 27 min read

Bolt upright in the dark, John Sabo hears the station alarm screaming down the metal corridors, impossible, after these long months of bitter waiting.

Alan E. Nourse's 1957 story opens on a jolt of alarm aboard a lonely satellite outpost, building a taut space-opera tale of long isolation broken. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping story where the thing the crew waited months for finally, terribly, arrives.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller