All space was electrified as that harsh challenge rang out … but John Endlich hesitated. For he saw beyond his own murder—saw the horror and destruction his death would unleash—and knew he dared not fight back!
Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space … or miraculously create a flourishing paradise-colony?
Space-weary rocketmen dreamed of an asteroid Earth. But power-mad Norman Haynes had other plans—and he spread his control lines in a doom-net for that oasis in space.
Raymond Zinke Gallun (1911 – 1994) was among the earliest pulp fiction writers who specialized in science fiction, and he sold many stories to magazines in the 1930s under his own name and several pseudonyms (such as Dow Elstar, E.V. Raymond and William Callahan). His first novel, «People Minus X» (included here) was published in 1957, followed by his second, «The Planet Strappers,» in 1961 (also included here). He was honored with the I-CON Lifetime Achievement Award in 1985 at I-CON IV; the...
