Brightside Crossing

At the Red Lion, James Baron is stunned when a scarred stranger named Peter Claney bluntly warns that the planned Brightside Crossing on Mercury cannot be done. Claney is the only man said to have survived an earlier attempt, and as he begins to explain, the real enemy emerges: not just faulty equipment, but Mercury itself, with its toxic atmosphere, volcanic hazards, crushing heat, and the Sun's lethal power at perihelion. Claney recounts how Tom Mikuta, driven by obsession, assembled a daring team at Twilight Lab near Mercury's north pole for a crossing that would begin in the planet's survivable twilight and race toward the deadly bright side. With specialized vehicles, insulated suits, and fragile Bugs, the expedition pushes into a landscape of collapsing ledges, molten pits, thirst, exhaustion, and constant fear. Tensions flare between Claney's caution and McIvers' recklessness, and a risky shortcut ends in disaster when the ground gives way, burying the team in catastrophe. This tense science-fiction adventure pits human ambition against an almost unconquerable world, where pride, survival, and the lure of the impossible collide. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.