Dorothy De Courcy & John De Courcy 19 min read

An unscheduled 'whistle stop' at Procyon IV infuriates Captain Webster, who'd hoped to set a record with his fine new ship, but a lone passenger waits at Iridium City.

John and Dorothy De Courcy's 1948 story spins a wry first-contact and colonization tale from an inconvenient detour. Light, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where a captain's grudging stop for a single passenger turns out to matter more than any speed record.

In its time

Published in 1948, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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