Starlight! by Isaac Asimov Episode #238

Isaac Asimov | July 14, 2024

Starlight! by Isaac Asimov Episode #238
Isaac Asimov

STARLIGHT!

Episode #238 · Written by Isaac Asimov · Narrated by Scott Miller

A daring thief escapes into hyperspace with a fortune in stolen Krillium—confident his late partner’s genius will guide him safely home. But when the stars themselves betray him, he discovers the cruelest trap in the galaxy isn’t built by men.

Arthur Trent isn’t a hero—he’s a thief with a pilot’s reflexes and a killer’s calm. After murdering his elderly partner Brennmeyer, Trent flees into deep space with a fortune in stolen Krillium, confident that Brennmeyer’s automated navigation computer will do the rest. It’s the perfect crime: a Jump through hyperspace to a random point in the Galaxy, then another Jump to an inhabited world. The police will never find him; the stars themselves will be his hiding place.

But the Galaxy is vast and not as static as the data that describes it. Brennmeyer’s masterpiece of stellar cartography was built on decades of careful observation—but it could not account for the ever-changing nature of creation. As Trent’s ship emerges into an unknown region, the skies blaze with unfamiliar constellations. A single bright nova—one that didn’t exist when Brennmeyer compiled his maps—confuses the computer’s logic beyond repair. It keeps matching and matching, endlessly seeking a pattern that no longer exists. Inside, oxygen dwindles. Outside, the mocking glitter of starlight becomes his only companion.

“Starlight!” distills Asimov’s favorite themes into a single, devastating moment: the arrogance of intellect, the cold impartiality of science, and the eternal unpredictability of nature. It’s a brief story, yet it unfolds like a morality play across the infinite dark—a reminder that technology obeys its programming, not our prayers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) was one of the great architects of modern science fiction. Born in Russia and raised in Brooklyn, he taught biochemistry at Boston University while writing stories that transformed the genre from adventure escapism into speculative thought. His Robot and Foundation sagas laid the groundwork for AI and galactic-empire fiction, while his essays turned complex science into clear, engaging prose for millions of readers. A tireless humanist, Asimov believed in reason above superstition and progress above fear. His shorter works—like Starlight!—reveal the precision of his intellect and the wry fatalism that make his fiction timeless.

LISTEN TO THE STORY

Listen to Starlight! by Isaac Asimov — a vintage sci-fi tale of greed, genius, and a fatal Jump through the stars in this unforgettable classic science fiction short.