Mark Reinsberg 9 min read

Huddled in a fake survival capsule off Saturn, three space-pirates radio a passing freighter with a desperate plea for rescue, a trap, if only the freighter's crew is stupid enough to fall for it.

Mark Reinsberg's 1957 story is a brisk, clever space-opera caper. Sharp, engaging golden-age SF. Read it for a tightly-plotted little heist yarn among the moons of Saturn, where three con artists spring an ambush on an unsuspecting ship, and find, as such schemers do, that their clever plan has a catch.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Becker