
A routine Earth‑bound voyage aboard the sleek Marsward IV turns deadly when the ship’s captain is found dead in the control room, a charred wound marking his chest. The incident shatters the quiet of the transit, leaving only three crew members awake to face the void—Lefler, the astrogator now thrust into command; Taat, the ship’s doctor; and Robwood, the engineer. With the vessel drifting in weightless silence, every breath feels like a clue waiting to be uncovered.
Lefler, still half‑dazed from a night‑mare, must quickly assess the scene, noting the odd detail of the captain’s gloves and the heat‑gun lying nearby. The limited number of suspects forces the crew into a tense, almost paranoid, interrogation of each other, while the ship’s systems hum in the background, indifferent to the human drama. As they radio Earth for assistance, the clock ticks, and the thin line between duty and suspicion begins to blur.
The story weaves a classic closed‑circle mystery with the stark, metallic backdrop of deep‑space travel, exploring how isolation amplifies fear and how a single murder can unravel the fragile trust among a handful of people. Listeners are drawn into a suspenseful puzzle where every creak of the hull and every flicker of a control panel could hold the key to the truth.
Language
en
Duration
~33 minutes (31K characters)
Publisher of text edition
Project Gutenberg
Original publisher
New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc., 1957.
Credits
Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Release date
2023-09-07
Rights
Public domain in the USA.

1917–2007
Best known for thoughtful mid-century science fiction, this Tennessee journalist brought a reporter’s eye to stories about space, society, and human nature. His fiction ranged from sharp short work to novels like Rebels of the Red Planet.
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