The Altar at Midnight

In a smoky bar crowded with strippers, drunks, and hardbitten regulars, an older narrator notices a tense young man with a damaged face and an unsettling air of self-control. The stranger turns out to be a "spacer," a space traveler whose body has been altered by repeated journeys beyond Earth, and whose scars reveal the brutal cost of life in the void. Drawn into conversation, the narrator leads him through the city, where the spacer explains the broken blood vessels, radiation damage, and constant physical discipline demanded by his profession. Their walk deepens into a bleak, intimate exchange about loneliness, survival, and the price of progress. At Oswiak's, a rowdy refuge for old railroad men and other battered survivors, the spacer finds a rough kind of belonging among the damaged and enduring. Through drinking, joking, and storytelling, the story blends bitter humor with hard-edged compassion, showing a future in which technological advancement and profit are paid for in human scars. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.