O'Hara, Thomas J. <br/><br/>
Incident 

 - 1 online resource :  multiple file formats 
 - Produced from Fantastic Universe, May 1955 (Vol. 3, No. 4.). .
 - Produced from Fantastic Universe, May 1955 (Vol. 3, No. 4.). .
<br/><br/> Release date is 2026-05-22 
<br/><br/>Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)  Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) 
<br/><br/> Incident by Thomas J. O'Hara is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It centers on a deep-space expedition turned disaster when a lethal, mysterious plague ravages the crew, culminating in the lone survivor’s moral decision as he nears a seemingly hospitable world.<br/><br/>The story follows six astronauts on the first great galactic voyage as a fast, terrible illness fells them one by one: the captain dies suddenly, another never wakes, the engineer staggers into the reactor, and one man chooses suicide to avoid infection. Infected himself and approaching a life-bearing planet, the last survivor realizes landing would spread the plague to its inhabitants. He chooses sacrifice, setting the controls that will destroy the ship. The scene then shifts to a peaceful valley where a couple watches a “shooting star,” revealing the world below is Earth and that the hero’s act passes as a quiet, unnoticed incident. (This is an automatically generated summary.) 
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<br/><br/><label>Subjects--Index Terms: </label>Science fiction Short stories Diseases -- Fiction Space ships -- Fiction Interstellar travel -- Fiction 
<br/><br/><label>LC Class. No.: </label>PS