A Walk in the Dark

Robert Armstrong needs to reach Port Sanderson before the Canopus leaves the planet. It should be simple—the port is only six miles away. But his tractor has broken down, his torch fails after two miles, and the rest of the journey must be made through almost total darkness. The planet's few stars and five tiny moons offer virtually no light, leaving Armstrong to feel his way along the road and hope he reaches the ship in time.

Then he remembers a story told back at the base. Another man once walked this road at night and claimed something followed him near Carver's Pass, always staying beyond the reach of his light. Armstrong is a practical man with little patience for frightening stories, but alone in the darkness, every reason the tale cannot be true seems to lead to another reason why it might be. A Walk in the Dark is Arthur C. Clarke at his suspenseful best, turning six miles across an alien world into a battle between reason and fear.

Arthur C. Clarke was born in Somerset, England, in 1917 and became one of the most influential science fiction writers of the 20th century. During World War II he served in the Royal Air Force and worked with radar. In 1945, he published a paper describing how satellites in geostationary orbit could provide worldwide communications, years before satellite communications became reality.

Clarke wrote Childhood's End, The City and the Stars, Rendezvous with Rama, and 2001: A Space Odyssey, developed alongside Stanley Kubrick's landmark film. His acclaimed short fiction includes The Sentinel, The Nine Billion Names of God, and The Star. Clarke spent much of his later life in Sri Lanka and continued writing about space, technology, humanity, and the mysteries beyond Earth until his death in 2008.