Cum Grano Salis

Stranded on an alien world with a month of rations between them and death, the crew of an exploratory spacecraft makes a terrifying discovery: survival might depend on eating food that evolution never intended for human bodies. Colonel Fennister's team faces starvation after lightning destroys their supplies, and hope arrives in the form of a strange fruit called the banana-pear. But when spaceman Broderick MacNeil discovers he can eat it safely while others die horribly, the crew must confront an unsettling question: what if survival is only for some of them? Written in the late 1950s, this compact survival thriller drips with Cold War paranoia and the era's fascination with biochemistry. Garrett's narrative crackles with tension as desperation collides with distrust, and the ending leaves an uncomfortable aftertaste: sometimes the difference between life and death is written in the blood.