Patrick Wilkins 34 min read

To love your wife is good, and to love your State is good too, but if it comes to survival, you must love one better, and the enemy knew exactly which one Aron was dedicated to.

Patrick Wilkins's 1954 story builds a taut military space opera around a man torn between love and loyalty. Sharp, emotionally charged golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping tale of war, devotion, and the terrible choice a soldier must make between his heart and his cause.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban