
A century of peace has cloaked the Solar Federation, but an unseen menace has begun to unravel its fragile harmony. DeHarries, a veteran correlator, summons an emergency council to confront a series of inexplicable failures—delayed shipments, vanished research, and a growing sense of dread that spreads from planet to planet. His urgent plea forces the delegates to set aside long‑standing rivalries and consider a common danger.
The council’s discussion quickly turns to concrete signs of trouble: Earth’s uranium supply from Mars has mysteriously stalled, Venus’s prized allotropic metal blueprints have been stolen, and the Callistan colonies are battling a surge of a new, destabilizing drug. Each incident seems unrelated, yet DeHarries insists they form a disturbing pattern that could threaten the entire system. As the delegates grapple with the evidence, the stakes become clear—if they cannot identify the source of the corruption, the Federation itself may crumble.
Language
en
Duration
~1 hours (105K 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
2021-03-04
Rights
Public domain in the USA.
Subjects

1913–1977
A lively pulp-era science fiction writer, he published energetic stories in the 1930s and 1940s and later became especially remembered for working with Ray Bradbury on an early fanzine. His fiction mixes big ideas, adventure, and the imaginative spirit of classic magazine SF.
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