Stephen Marlowe 26 min read

Liddell stares at the blank screen of the transfer unit, enigmatically, mysteriously, sometimes frighteningly blank, as his wife of one month leans anxiously over his shoulder.

Stephen Marlowe's 1955 story is a tense space-opera adventure of a mysterious matter-transfer station. Sharp, atmospheric golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a newlywed couple staffing a lonely transfer post between the stars find that their first arrival draws them into a cosmic snare.

In its time

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

Reading it

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