Winston K. Marks 13 min read

Frane Lewis savors a sadistic shiver as he moves up the passageway toward the captain's control room, the warm air of the little space-freighter still heavy with the smell of death.

Winston K. Marks's 1953 story is a tense space-opera thriller of a killer aboard ship. Sharp, suspenseful golden-age pulp. Read it for a taut tale where a cold-blooded murderer works his way through a freighter's crew for fabulous pay, and finds the last two chores harder than he planned.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller