Markham Gray, a seasoned journalist returning from Triton, expects a dull journey home—until a strange shape appears on the vision screen and the ship's instruments begin to fail. What starts as idle curiosity becomes a tense first-contact crisis when an unknown vessel shadows the craft, prompting the captain and crew to assume the worst and prepare to attack. Then comes a calm message: the strangers are not hostile. Back on New Albuquerque, the encounter explodes into a public and political reckoning. Captain Roger Post is court-martialed for not destroying the alien ship, exposing a hardline Earth doctrine that treats every alien as a future enemy and dismisses the possibility of friendship. Through Markham's eyes, the story becomes a sharp reflection on humanity's ancient military habit of imagining "potential enemies," from old empires to the space age. As Post insists the message felt pitying rather than threatening, the tale builds a chilling blend of science fiction, suspense, and social criticism. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.

À propos de l'auteur

Reynolds, Mack

Mack Reynolds was an American science fiction writer whose life was as restless and politically engaged as the futures he imagined. Born in California in 1917, he came of age during the upheavals of the Great Depression and later served as a writer, speaker, and activist with a deep interest in economics, labor, and social change. That background gave his fiction a distinctive edge: he was not simply inventing distant worlds, but using speculative storytelling to test the possibilities and failures of real political systems. Over a prolific career, he became known for sharp, idea-driven novels and stories that explored revolution, class conflict, propaganda, surveillance, and the uneasy relationship between technology and power. His work often asked whether ordinary people could shape history or whether they would be shaped by institutions too large to resist. Themes of inequality, authoritarianism, and the manipulation of public belief run through his writing, making it feel strikingly current in an age still wrestling with disinformation, corporate influence, and political polarization. Reynolds’s legacy lies in his willingness to make science fiction intellectually provocative and socially urgent, showing that the genre could be both entertaining and a serious tool for examining the world we live in. Readers who enjoy politically charged science fiction, thoughtful social critique, and stories that imagine the consequences of power will find his work especially rewarding.