Robert Zacks 7 min read

Under the transparent dome, a scarred old space veteran spins tales of an Earth his young listeners have never seen, the lost home of their species, myriad stars burning cold overhead.

Robert Zacks's 1952 story frames its first-contact space opera with the wistful storytelling of an exile from Earth. Evocative, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a tale steeped in longing for a homeworld remembered only in the stories of old spacemen.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Alex Schomburg