Piper in the Woods

On the sun-baked asteroid outpost of Y-3, Dr. Henry Harris is confronted with a baffling epidemic of apathy: disciplined Patrolmen are abandoning their posts, drifting into the forest, and insisting they have become plants. Corporal Westerburg is the first case Harris examines in depth—healthy, calm, and utterly convinced that sunlight, stillness, and quiet immobility matter more than duty, ambition, or the Patrol itself. When Harris learns that nearly thirty others have fallen into the same serene delusion, Commander Cox and Chief Watts dismiss the crisis as laziness, but Harris senses something far stranger at work. Determined to uncover the cause, Harris studies a recorded interrogation of biologist Robert Bradshaw, whose answers point toward mysterious beings called the Pipers, said to live in the woods and teach this passive way of thinking. He ventures into the asteroid's wild, prehistoric landscape, where the answer seems to lie beyond the garrison's reach. There, beside a hidden pool and waterfall, he meets a copper-skinned native girl who speaks Terran and confirms that the Pipers are real. As the girl agrees to guide him deeper into the ferns, Harris steps toward the heart of a mystery that threatens to unmake the station's purpose—and the minds of its people. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.