Raymond F. Jones 1 hr 4 min read

This is the rainy year; last year was dry, and it will come again, but they won't be here to see it, Captain Carnahan thinks, at the end of the wet-and-dry cycle that means going home.

Raymond F. Jones's 1954 story is a thoughtful colonization and first-contact tale. Sharp, humane golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a survey party at the close of its long tour on an alien world confronts a discovery that complicates the simple prospect of finally, gratefully, going home.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 4 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Paul Orban