Alan Edward Nourse 19 min read

A crash-priority call from Morua II brings the General Practice Patrol ship Lancet racing in like a hound on a fox, before anyone quite registers that Morua II is a Class VI planet.

Alan E. Nourse's 1957 story is a brisk hard-SF and first-contact tale of interstellar medicine on a dangerous world. Sharp, engaging golden-age SF (Nourse was himself a physician). Read it for a rousing 'space doctor' adventure where a routine emergency call turns out to be anything but routine.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller