Frederik Pohl 14 min read

On the dank Venusian frontier, a ship's officers wait for a native delegation to return, 'if they come back,' says the exec, who doesn't trust the locals one bit.

Frederik Pohl's 1944 story builds a tense colonization-and-first-contact tale around uneasy Earthmen and the Venusians they've come to deal with. Sharp, early Pohl with a sting. Read it for a taut story of frontier mistrust where the question of who is double-crossing whom cuts both ways.

In its time

Published in 1944, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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