John Massie Davis 9 min read

On a hostile world, humanity is given a stark ultimatum, leave, Earthmen, or die, and a beleaguered force must decide whether to fight or flee.

John Massie Davis's 1953 story is a fast military first-contact tale of Earthmen facing an alien deadline. Colorful, tense golden-age SF. Read it for a rousing story of humans backed against the wall on someone else's planet, given one grim choice.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry