S. M. Tenneshaw 24 min read

'I'm going to kill you, Miles Berendt,' Bert thinks savagely, you've taken my business, you've got your eyes on my girl, and tomorrow they won't even find your atoms.

S. M. Tenneshaw's 1954 story builds a tense space opera around murderous jealousy aboard a freight line. Sharp, driven golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping tale of envy and a planned killing among the space hangars, and the reckoning that follows.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry