
On the rim of Jupiter’s moon Io, patrol officer Evan Harwich monitors the treacherous zone known as the Forbidden Moon, a region where every ship that ventures too close has vanished in a flash of white fire. When a sleek experimental craft, numbered X911, ignores his frantic warnings and barrels toward the haunted horizon, Harwich watches helplessly as the mystery of the moon’s invisible shield seems ready to claim another victim. The legends speak of an unseen energy field that crushes metal, and Harwich has spent his career chasing the source of that deadly aura.
Yet the X911 surprises everyone when a shimmering blue halo sprouts from a spiral of metal around its hull, momentarily holding back the relentless forces that have doomed countless explorers. Sparks dance through the halo, hinting at a technology or phenomenon that may finally pierce the moon’s impenetrable veil. As the protective glow flickers and the ship’s fate hangs in the balance, Harwich is left torn between awe and dread, wondering whether this breakthrough could open a path to the long‑forbidden surface.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (95K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-04-25
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1911–1994
A pioneering voice from science fiction’s pulp era, he helped imagine the genre’s sense of wonder long before space travel became real. His stories mixed far-off planets, strange futures, and a lively curiosity about what humanity might become.
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