Raymond Z. Gallun 37 min read

Back from the meteor swarms with a load of ore, Chet finds Nick Mavrocordatus reading the casualty list at the shipping office, dead, missing, hospitalized, one grim typed line after another.

Raymond Z. Gallun's 1942 story is a grounded, humane colonization and space-opera tale of asteroid miners. Warm, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story that captures the hard, dangerous life of the space frontier, and the small oasis of comfort two working spacers manage to find in it.

In its time

Published in 1942, during the 1940s, the golden age begins.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Leo Morey