Charles R. Tanner 20 min read

Aboard the rocket-ship Berenice, the ship's whole air supply depends on one finicky 'farmer' tending his tanks of oxygen-making water-weed, a fragile lifeline for a voyage bound for trouble.

Charles R. Tanner's 1943 story grounds a military space opera in the vivid detail of shipboard life-support. Sharp, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for a tale where the humble keeper of the air becomes crucial when mutiny threatens a ship far out in the void.

In its time

Published in 1943, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Joseph Doolin