John Broome 28 min read

Captain Christopher Douglas, Starways' newest and youngest Old Man, is running a full day behind, and it's all the fault of bo'sun Tug Skelly, whose transgressions he inveighs against in his cabin.

John Broome's 1942 story is an atmospheric horror-tinged space opera of a haunted hulk. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a rousing tale where a young transgalactic skipper and his cargo freighter cross paths with a drifting derelict, and the dread it carries with it through the dark.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Alexander Leydenfrost