Garold S. Hatfield 7 min read

Bound and bruised, old Kelvin Martin warns his brutal assistant that the glittering machine filling the corner of the windowless room can bring him nothing but trouble.

Garold S. Hatfield's 1942 story opens on menace and a dangerous invention, launching a fast space-opera tale of betrayal and peril. Brisk, pulpy golden-age SF. Read it for a lean adventure where a scientist's warning about his own machine goes fatally unheeded.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Joseph Doolin