Incident by Thomas J. O'Hara
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Incident by Thomas J. O'Hara is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It centers on a deep-space expedition turned disaster when a lethal, mysterious plague ravages the crew, culminating in the lone survivor’s moral decision as he nears a seemingly hospitable world. The story follows six astronauts on the first great galactic voyage as a fast, terrible illness fells them one by one: the captain dies suddenly, another
never wakes, the engineer staggers into the reactor, and one man chooses suicide to avoid infection. Infected himself and approaching a life-bearing planet, the last survivor realizes landing would spread the plague to its inhabitants. He chooses sacrifice, setting the controls that will destroy the ship. The scene then shifts to a peaceful valley where a couple watches a “shooting star,” revealing the world below is Earth and that the hero’s act passes as a quiet, unnoticed incident. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | O'Hara, Thomas J. |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Hunter, Mel, 1927-2004 |
| Title | Incident |
| Original Publication | New York: King-Size Publications, Inc., 1955. |
| Series Title | Produced from Fantastic Universe, May 1955 (Vol. 3, No. 4.). |
| Credits | Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Diseases -- Fiction |
| Subject | Space ships -- Fiction |
| Subject | Interstellar travel -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78725 |
| Release Date | May 22, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 1306 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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