E. G. Von Wald 36 min read

The aging little psychologist scowls at the captain's insignia on his own sleeve. Discipline is bad enough on Mars, he tells the arguing junior officer, but out with the fleet, it's virtually gone.

E. G. Von Wald's 1955 story is a sharp hard-SF space opera about morale and command in deep space. Clever, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story that probes what really holds a fighting force together far from home, where old-school discipline has quietly given way to something new.

In its time

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

Reading it

36 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

H. R. Van Dongen