A. L. Haley 29 min read

Those methane-and-ammonia planets are the dead-end of creation, and a smuggler caught red-handed with deadly Kooleen crystals finds himself backed into the tightest corner in the solar system.

A. L. Haley's 1954 story spins a fast, folksy hard-SF space opera from a rogue's predicament near Jupiter. Colorful, wry golden-age SF. Read it for a lively tale narrated by a smooth smuggler whose latest scrape leads him to the giant planet's grim outer reaches.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas