Rick Raphael 1 hr 11 min read

Skiing above the timberline into a rising blizzard, water-cops Troy and Alec patrol a future where every drop is precious, and safeguarding the world's water is a dangerous, deadly-serious job.

Rick Raphael's 1963 story is a vivid, thoughtful hard-SF and social-SF tale of resource scarcity. Sharp, prophetic golden-age SF. Read it for a gripping, well-researched story of water management in a thirsty future, where dedicated agents brave the elements to protect a precious resource, in ecology-minded SF ahead of its time.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

1 hr 11 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

George Schelling