Paul W. Fairman 16 min read

Engineer Reed Kendall is interrupted at his blueprints by a phonovision call from a cold, contemptuous man in an odd silver mask, who has a demand, and will not take no for an answer.

Paul W. Fairman's 1956 story is a rousing first-contact space opera. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a fast-moving story of a masked stranger's sinister ultimatum and the impossible choice it forces on an ordinary man, building through tension toward a revelation with the fate of more than one world at stake, in a well-turned golden-age piece.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry