The man who opened the door did not waste his breath asking who they were or what they wanted, he merely stared at Captain Gregory and the two space officers behind him and waited.
Captain Gregory seeks vital information from James Andrew Caulfield, erstwhile Engineer on the passenger-carrying freighter Sunflower and proven interplanetary litterbug. "There had been a time when people thought it funny that a ship could be wrecked by . . . a frigid, iron-hard potato peeling. But among spacemen . . . it was the sort of joke at which you died laughing." Caulfield's eleven-year-old crime has already cost one ship and eighteen lives and the death toll might keep rising indefinitely. 'Deadly Litter' should have won a Hugo and/or an Edgar award from the mystery writers of America.
In magazines
| Title | Published as | Language | Editor | Date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Science Fiction Adventures 13, February 1960 | English | John Carnell | February 1960 | |
|
Urania (collana) 421, 30 January 1966 | Vortice di relitti; Astronave a grappolo; Il Comandante Ideale | Italian | Carlo Fruttero, Franco Lucentini | 30 January 1966 |
|
Urania (collana) 770, 11 February 1979 | Vortice di relitti; Il Comandante Ideale; Astronave a grappolo | Italian | Carlo Fruttero, Franco Lucentini | 11 February 1979 |
In James White's books
| Title | Type | Year | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Deadly Litter | Collection | 1964 |
SCIENCE FICTION ADVENTURES No 13, February 1960 Deadly Litter
ISFDB title record (CC BY 4.0).