Robert Sampson 29 min read

A shouting wave of men riots through the engine room, clubbing at compact, darting beasts the color of a poppy, and the First Mate knows you can't drive space cats out with wrenches.

Robert Sampson's 1954 story opens on shipboard chaos, building a fast space-opera tale around a cargo of dangerous crimson creatures. Colorful, kinetic golden-age SF. Read it for a lively story of a freighter overrun by its own feline red menace, and the men scrambling to survive it.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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