George O. Smith 1 hr 3 min read

John McBride hangs up the phone and wipes his face in a daze, and finds the aloof Sandra Drake sitting on the edge of the space lock, swinging her feet and greeting him with unusual warmth.

George O. Smith's 1944 story is a clever hard-SF and social-SF tale from his Plutonian Lens setting. Sharp, wry golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story where an engineer's surprising phone call and an unexpectedly friendly visitor set an ingenious plot in motion.

In its time

Published in 1944, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

1 hr 3 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

A. Williams