James Causey 26 min read

Planetfall on a green, cool, rain-promising world, but as the colonists file down the ramp, the crew hurries too fast to pile the supplies and be gone, and whispers start.

James Causey's 1955 story builds unease from a colony landing that the crew seems desperate to leave. Sharp, ominous first-contact and social SF. Read it for a story where a survey-perfect paradise hides a reason everyone who knows the truth wants off it by nightfall.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Summers