Lester Del Rey 16 min read

Halfway home from Mars, the first space pilot to reach the red planet notices a red rash spreading on his hands, and all thought of the sneeze he was about to cover gasps out of him in dread.

Lester del Rey's 1951 story mines wry suspense from a returning astronaut's fear of an alien disease. Clever, tense golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where the heroism of the first Mars flight collides with a very human, very itchy terror.

In its time

Published in 1951, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller