Raymond Z. Gallun 21 min read

Sam Conway is home from Mars, back from ferric deserts no boot had touched, from killing cold and solitude and the riddle of a vanished civilization, home to maples and kids at football.

Raymond Z. Gallun's 1940 story steeps its first-contact tale in the ache of an explorer's return and the mystery he carries back. Evocative, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a haunting story about coming home from the red planet, and what may have followed you back.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John R. Forte