Hank Searls 23 min read

From the open landing-lock of Space Station One, twenty-five thousand miles up, Walter Stanton gazes at the shining curve of Earth, some of his anguish, bitterness, and fear briefly easing.

Hank Searls's 1955 story builds a tense, poignant military space opera around a man aboard an orbital station. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story of duty, dread, and sacrifice, set against the awesome vista of the Earth seen from space.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry