F. L. Wallace 36 min read

When a truly infallible scientific bureau makes a serious error, the data must be wrong, but wrong how? At not-quite-dawn the executive officer steps out, takes one look, and goes right back inside.

F. L. Wallace's 1953 story is a sharp, ingenious colonization and first-contact tale of a planet full of surprises. Clever, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story where colonists find their supposedly safe new world alarmingly alive, and the mystery of its adaptable natives becomes a puzzle with high stakes.

In its time

Published in 1953, 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

William Ashman