S. M. Tenneshaw 23 min read

Sweating the moment he leaves the ship, Jansen realizes his luggage has been searched, a sure sign of trouble in Mercury's blazing twilight zone, where he must hurry before they haul him in.

S. M. Tenneshaw's 1956 story is a rousing adventure and space-opera tale. Vivid, driven golden-age pulp. Read it for a fast-moving pulp yarn of intrigue and danger on the sun-scorched frontier of Mercury, where a man on a secret errand races against exposure, in the colorful, action-packed style of the classic space-adventure magazines.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

W. E. Terry