
The story follows a battle‑scarred captain and his squad as they trek across the scorching ruins of an alien planet that seems utterly lifeless. The landscape is a maze of shattered domes, glass‑lined generators and endless silicon columns, all under a blinding white sky that saps heat and moisture. Crackling dust that sounds like laughter stalks their steps, while a mysterious spheroid glints in the distance, promising answers—or danger. Tension rises between the hardened leader, the jittery gunner Hogan, and the silent observer Templar as the planet’s uncanny hostility presses in.
With supplies dwindling, the captain must decide whether to push onward in search of any sign of life or to turn back to the safety of their ship. The narrative captures their claustrophobic crawl through collapsed megastructures, the eerie echoes that repeat their own words, and the feeling that something unseen watches from the ruins. Listeners are drawn into a tense, atmospheric chase that balances hard‑boiled military camaraderie with the unsettling unknown, leaving them to wonder what lies at the heart of the spheroid.
Language
en
Duration
~37 minutes (36K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2020-12-10
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
1925–2014
An educator, poet, and science fiction writer, he built a compact but memorable body of work that moved easily between sharp satire and big speculative ideas. He is best known for The Eskimo Invasion, a story unusual enough to earn both Hugo and Nebula recognition as it grew from novelette to novel.
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