Teddy Keller 21 min read

Sergeant Major McCloud ignores the jangling phones and panicking brass and lights a cigarette, somebody has to keep his head, as the Office of Germ Warfare Protection descends into chaos.

Teddy Keller's 1961 story is a taut post-apocalyptic and social-SF tale of a spreading pandemic. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a mysterious plague overwhelms the authorities, and a level-headed sergeant at the heart of the Pentagon's response confronts a menace no army can fight.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John Schoenherr