Monday, June 1, 2009

“The Crystal Crypt”, a short story written by Philip K. Dick

“The Crystal Crypt”, a short story written by the legendary SF author Philip K. Dick and originally published in the January 1954 issue of Planet Stories magazine, can be read for free online or downloaded from Project Gutenberg or ManyBooks.net. A tale in which the last Terran ship from Mars finds terrorists aboard, here are the opening lines of “The Crystal Crypt”:

"Attention, Inner-Flight ship! Attention! You are ordered to land at the Control Station on Deimos for inspection. Attention! You are to land at once!"

The metallic rasp of the speaker echoed through the corridors of the great ship. The passengers glanced at each other uneasily, murmuring and peering out the port windows at the small speck below, the dot of rock that was the Martian checkpoint, Deimos.

"What's up?" an anxious passenger asked one of the pilots, hurrying through the ship to check the escape lock. ...


Thanks to Dave Tackett of the blog QuasarDragon for the tip.

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