John Victor Peterson 5 min read

Descending to Alpha Centauri's second planet after man's first hyperspace voyage, two explorers make an unnerving discovery: its people cannot see them until after they've already passed by.

John Victor Peterson's 1954 story spins a hard-SF and time-travel puzzle from humanity's first landing on an alien world. Sharp, intriguing golden-age SF. Read it for a story where first contact goes strangely wrong, and the explorers find themselves oddly out of step with time.

In its time

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

Reading it

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