Vernon L. McCain 20 min read

The dehydration of the planet took centuries: even the group-mind of the Rell could not fathom what bled their liquid paradise into a dry husk, driving the quadrillions ever southward.

Vernon L. McCain's 1954 story is an inventive first-contact and social-SF tale told from an alien perspective. Sharp, imaginative golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a dying microscopic race seeks escape from its parched world, and the hitch-hikers of the title find an unexpected road to survival.

In its time

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

Reading it

20 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).