Test Rocket!

A test rocket launched toward Mars veers inexplicably off course and vanishes into deep space, leaving the scientists who built it with no explanation—and Captain Baird with an uneasy reminder of the lives risked in the name of progress. Six months later, an enormous rocket returns across the Arctic, bearing the same markings as the original craft but built from unfamiliar materials and three times its size.

The vessel lands gently at the testing station, where it is surrounded by armed troops and taken apart piece by piece. Inside, investigators find their own instruments, unmistakably returned, along with a living passenger who looks human but cannot read, speak, or understand the world that has received him.

As the scientists study their baffling visitor, the quiet laboratory becomes a place of mounting questions. Who built the larger rocket, why was their technology copied, and what does the stranger’s arrival reveal about the universe beyond Earth?