Charles Cottrell 49 min read

The narrator trails the trusting Willy Maloon toward a little asteroid, keeping a discreet distance, determined to find out just what the fellow is up to out there.

Charles Cottrell's 1960 story spins a wry social-SF and space-opera tale of surveillance, scheming, and asteroid intrigue. Sharp, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a story of one man shadowing another across the asteroids, where the watcher may not be as clever as he thinks.

In its time

Published in 1960, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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