The Stowaway

Joe Spain is nobody. A factory worker at the launch site, he watches astronauts receive glory while he tightens bolts no one will ever thank him for. So he makes a desperate decision: he'll stow away aboard the rocket bound for the Moon, prove he belongs among the stars, become someone worth remembering. He hides in a supply barrel. He survives the launch. And then he discovers the terrible truth: this experimental vessel was never meant to return. It's going to explode, and he'll die in the dark, unrecognized, unmourned, his body fragments scattered across the lunar surface he dreamed of touching. This 1950s science fiction short story is a brutal meditation on class, ambition, and the hunger to be seen. Heiner writes with cold precision about a man who reaches for the stars only to find oblivion waiting there. For readers who like their science fiction with real teeth, who want to feel the weight of a life spent in the shadows.