Murray Leinster 1 hr 7 min read

A neat trap of a problem: without repair parts they can't bring in the ship that carries the repair parts, and Colonial Survey officer Bordman feels the emergency the moment the rockets fire.

Murray Leinster's 1955 story is a taut hard-SF colonization tale of engineering against a hostile desert world. Sharp, ingenious golden-age SF. Read it for a classic competent-man puzzle, where survival on a scorching planet hinges on solving an impossible logistical bind.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

1 hr 7 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).