Robert W. Haseltine 6 min read

Climbing a Wisconsin hillside with his bow, a hunter meets a cheerful stranger sitting on a stump, a chance encounter that opens onto humanity's first step toward the stars.

Robert W. Haseltine's 1961 story is a quiet, thoughtful first-contact and hard-SF tale framed by an ordinary hunting trip. Sharp, warm golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a casual hilltop conversation turns out to be a prelude to something momentous for the whole human race.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry