Incident

Summary

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. 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.)