George O. Smith 2 hr 43 min read

Over the hubbub of the waiting room, a siren wails and the loudspeaker calls Spaceflight Seventy-nine for Castor Three and Pollux Four, a cargo hop, with barely half a dozen passengers.

George O. Smith's 1954 story is a brisk space-opera adventure that opens on an ordinary departure gone wrong. Sharp, engaging golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a routine cargo flight to a distant system strands its handful of travelers, and survival depends on more than luck.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

2 hr 43 min read (a novel-length work, settle in).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay