James H. Schmitz 48 min read

Pilot Gefty Rammer masters his panic as unknown forces batter the Silver Queen as she's never been battered in eighteen years of spaceflight, while his mysterious passenger lies unconscious.

James H. Schmitz's 1962 story is a taut, inventive first-contact space opera. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a suspenseful tale where a small ship's crew and their enigmatic passengers are caught by strange cosmic forces, unfolding a clever mystery of aliens and time, from a reliably ingenious adventure master.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

48 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Adolph E. Brotman