Basil Wells 18 min read

On a lonely Connecticut beach, the alien Thig smooths sand over the hatch of his hidden ship and starts inland, scout of an invasion, walking carefully in Earth's lesser gravity.

Basil Wells's 1942 story is a thoughtful first-contact space opera of an alien spy who begins to feel the pull of humanity. Sharp, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story where an emotionless invader, sent to prepare Earth's conquest, finds his own heart quietly changing.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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