Roger D. Aycock 8 min read

Nearing the zero point where two planets' gravity fields cancel out, the scientist Maynard feels a swelling, secret exultation, the thrill of a pioneer, an advance guard for a conquering people.

Roger D. Aycock's (Roger Dee's) 1950 story is a sharp first-contact and psi-powers tale. Clever, unsettling golden-age SF. Read it for a well-turned story where a triumphant scientist's sense of destiny opens onto an unwelcome truth about who, or what, is really in the driver's seat, in a taut golden-age piece with a neat, disquieting twist.

In its time

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

Reading it

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