Gordon R. Dickson 16 min read

Against impossible odds, a lone starship comes down on an unnamed planet and finds another ship already there, and inside it, a stranger who should not exist.

Gordon R. Dickson's 1952 story is a taut, atmospheric first-contact space opera. Sharp, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for an early Dickson tale of an improbable encounter at the edge of known space, where a father-and-son crew confront a mystery that turns first contact into something far stranger and more personal.

In its time

Published in 1952, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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