“Moment of Truth,” a short story by Basil Wells

Thanks to an awesome snowstorm earlier today and a recent post by Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon, I was able to read “Moment of Truth” (1957), a short story by Basil Wells that is freely available at the site ManyBooks.net. Originally published in the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe magazine, “Moment of Truth” is about a woman named Ruth Halsey and the hardship she faces on Mars. Here’s an excerpt:

“She loved that old tree. She had played among its long horizontal branches from childhood. Her brother, Alex, who had been killed in the Normandy Landing during World War Three, had loved the tree too. He had built the railed, shingled-roofed little nest high up in the tree's crotched heart where Ruth kept some of her extra-special notes and jewelry and a book of poems.”

Pictured above: The cover of the December 1957 issue of Fantastic Universe.