Lee B. Holum 39 min read

Snow beats against the terminal windows as Roger Lorin and his wife wait near the boarding tunnels for the announcement that will send them out under the field to their rocket.

Lee B. Holum's 1955 story is a sharp first-contact and social-SF tale that opens in an ordinary spaceport. Clever, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a couple's routine departure into the snowy night becomes the setting for an unexpected encounter, and the third party of the title changes everything.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Kelly Freas