The spaceship Johannes Kepler is travelling the routine 92-day trip between
Lunar Station and Mars when it is hit by a meteorite. The Captain and all
senior crew members were holding a meeting and were killed by the impact. The
only officers left are First Engineer Holtz, who refuses to leave the engine
room and Lieutenant Donald Chase, a young doctor in his first post.
Chase finds himself in charge of a badly damaged ship, with a crew trained
simply to obey orders, and over 100 passengers on the brink of panic. The
novel follows his attempts to improvise solutions to problems which arise as
they nurse the ship on towards Mars.
Dedication: To Barry L. Lewis, M.D., F.A.C.A.
as: Plague Ship, in: Venture Science Fiction, November 1969, p.5-82.
New York: Doubleday, 1970, 142pp., hbk. Jacket: Alan Magee.
Tokyo: Akane Shobo Company Ltd., March 1973. Slip-cased paperback. [Japanese]
as: Raumschiff in Getahr. Munich: Heyne, 1973, 124pp., pbk. Translated by Sylvia Brecht. [German]
Harmondsworth: Puffin, July 1976, 140pp., ISBN: 0-14-030853-9, pbk. Cover: Tony Roberts. Reprinted 1976; 1978 (Cover: Roberts); 1980; 1983; February 1986 (ISBN: 0-14-030853-9, Cover: Eddie Jones).
in: A Puffin SF Galaxy (Boxed Set), 1978/9. Includes 1978 Puffin paperback edition, along with Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke, Catseye by Andre Norton, and Space Hostages by Nicholas Fiske.
as: Tai Kong Chuan da Zai Nan. Hong Kong: Ming Tian Chu Ban She, 1981. Translated by Ya Wen Yi. [Chinese]
as: Avaruuslääkäri. Helsinki: Kustannus Oy Jalava, 1988. Translated by Renne Nikupaavola. [Finnish]
as: Ränkraske Lend, in: Pioneer, #8, 1987 - #5, 1988. Translated by Mario Kivistik. [Estonian]
Library Journal, 15th October 1970. Review by F. Postell.
