The Light (short story)

1957 short story by Poul Anderson

London version of Virgin of the Rocks

The Light is a science fiction short story by Poul Anderson. It was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in March 1957. The plot concerns the crew of a spaceship from the United States landing on the Moon during a period of intense Cold War tension, and the possibly disastrous consequences of their discovery there.

The story is framed as the account of an unnamed narrator telling a professor of art history about their upcoming secret mission, and why it is so critical. Besides his skills in science and mathematics, the narrator is also interested in the art of the Old Masters.

## Plot

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The narrator tells how he and two others, Baird, the commander, and Hernandez, the engineer, flew the spaceship Benjamin Franklin to the Moon, landing just outside the crater Plato.

After completing routine exploration and sampling, the crew decide to trek up the crater wall of Plato. When they reach a point where they can see into the crater, they notice outgassing taking place below them. The narrator wants to investigate the cloud of vapor, but Baird opposes this until Hernandez intervenes. Climbing down, they reach a flat ledge under the vapor cloud, with the sunlight acting on the cloud to produce a light that the narrator finds strangely familiar. Then, to their shock, they find footprints that seem to have been made by hobnailed boots. Believing that the Soviet Union has secretly landed on the Moon, Baird insists on returning to the ship to report this, but the narrator wants to follow the prints back to their source. Eventually he goes alone down to the crater floor and finds traces of a camp, the tracks of some kind of vehicle, but no trace of a rocket. He then notices the shape of the Christian cross etched into a rock. Barely making it back to the ship before his suit's power and air run out, the narrator says he knows who was there before them.

Believing that the previous explorer must have had access to some revolutionary technology, technology that could win or start a war, the narrator reveals to the professor that the light he saw on the ledge was the same as that used in the painting Virgin of the Rocks, and that their mission is to search museums and old papers to find some clue as to how Leonardo da Vinci could have walked on the Moon.

## Adaptation

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"The Light" was adapted into an episode of the NBC radio series X Minus One, broadcast on October 24, 1957, 20 days after the launch of Sputnik 1.[1]

## References

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1. ^ Truesdale, Dave (May 5, 2012). "The Light — Poul Anderson". Old Time Radio. Tangent. Retrieved March 10, 2025.

## External links

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* The Light title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

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Works by Poul Anderson

Hoka!|

* Earthman's Burden
* Star Prince Charlie
* Hoka!

The Psychotechnic League|

* Star Ways
* The Snows of Ganymede
* Virgin Planet
* The Psychotechnic League
* Cold Victory
* Starship

Technic History|

| Polesotechnic League period
of Nicholas van Rijn|

* War of the Wing-Men
* Trader to the Stars
* The Trouble Twisters
* Satan's World
* The Earth Book of Stormgate
* Mirkheim
* The People of the Wind

|

Terran Empire period
of Dominic Flandry|

* Ensign Flandry
* A Circus of Hells
* The Rebel Worlds
* The Day of Their Return
* Agent of the Terran Empire
* Flandry of Terra
* A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows
* A Stone in Heaven
* The Game of Empire
* The Long Night
* Let the Spacemen Beware

History of Rustum|

* Orbit Unlimited
* New America

Maurai|

* Maurai and Kith
* Orion Shall Rise

Other science fiction novels|

* Flight to Forever
* Vault of the Ages
* Brain Wave
* Question and Answer
* No World of Their Own
* The Long Way Home
* Perish by the Sword
* War of Two Worlds
* The Enemy Stars
* The High Crusade
* Murder in Black Letter
* Twilight World
* After Doomsday
* The Makeshift Rocket
* Murder Bound
* Shield
* Three Worlds to Conquer
* The Corridors of Time
* The Star Fox
* The Fox, the Dog and the Griffin: A Folk Tale Adapted from the Danish of C. Molbeck
* World Without Stars
* Tau Zero
* The Byworlder
* The Dancer from Atlantis
* There Will Be Time
* Fire Time
* Inheritors of Earth
* The Winter of the World
* The Avatar
* The Demnon of Scattery
* The Devil's Game
* The Boat of a Million Years
* The Saturn Game
* The Longest Voyage
* War of the Gods
* Starfarers
* Genesis
* Mother of Kings
* For Love and Glory

Collections|

* Strangers from Earth
* Un-Man and Other Novellas
* Time and Stars
* The Horn of Time
* Beyond the Beyond
* Seven Conquest
* Tales of the Flying Mountains
* The Queen of Air and Darkness and Other Stories
* The Worlds of Poul Anderson
* The Many Worlds of Poul Anderson
* Homeward and Beyond
* The Best of Poul Anderson
* Homebrew
* Winners
* The Night Face & Other Stories
* The Dark Between the Stars
* Explorations
* Fantasy
* Winners
* Cold Victory
* The Gods Laughed
* Starship
* The Winter of the World / The Queen of Air and Darkness
* Conflict
* The Long Night
* Past Times
* The Unicorn Trade
* Dialogue With Darkness
* Space Folk
* Alight in the Void
* The Armies of Elfland
* Inconstant Star
* Kinship With the Stars
* All One Universe
* Going for Infinity
* Swordsmen from the Stars

Operation Otherworld|

* Operation Chaos
* Operation Luna

Other fantasy novels|

* Three Hearts and Three Lions
* The Broken Sword
* Hrolf Kraki's Saga
* A Midsummer Tempest
* The Merman's Children
* Conan the Rebel
* War of the Gods

Historical novels|

* The Golden Slave
* Rogue Sword
* Mother of Kings

Novellas and short stories|

* "Brake"
* "Call Me Joe"
* "Delenda Est"
* "Entity"
* "Eutopia"
* "Goat Song"
* "The Light"
* "The Longest Voyage"
* "The Man Who Came Early"
* "Marius"
* "Memory"
* "Night Piece"
* "No Truce with Kings"
* "The Pirate"
* "The Queen of Air and Darkness"
* "Quest"
* "Sam Hall"
* "The Saturn Game"
* "The Sensitive Man"
* "The Sharing of Flesh"
* "Un-Man"

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