A thrilling news bulletin, dated September 11, 1996, was recently handed to me by an assistant who is too young to remember the star over Moscow, and it is toward him and others like him that the following history is directed. If it resembles fiction more than it does fact, the similarity is wholly intentional, for it is only through fiction that the past can be brought back to life.

Robert F. Young was a Hugo nominated author known for his lyrical and sentimental prose. His work appeared in Amazing Stories, Fantastic Stories, Startling Stories, Playboy, The Saturday Evening Post, Collier’s, Galaxy Magazine, and Analog Science Fact & Fiction.