Project Hush

The mission was supposed to remain invisible. Years of classified research and a launch so secret the military itself barely knew it existed had one goal: place the United States Army on the Moon before anyone else could get there. When Colonel Benjamin Rice and two fellow scientists land in Mare Nubium and begin assembling a lunar military station, everything goes according to plan. Supplies are unloaded, a plastic dome rises from the dust, and a scouting survey begins across the barren landscape. Then the scout returns early with terrifying news. Another dome already stands on the Moon. The structure is unmistakably artificial. A fresh exhaust crater proves it arrived by spacecraft. Whoever built it landed recently—and apparently reached the Moon first. Rice must decide what to do. If the strangers are hostile, the expedition could be wiped out before Earth learns what happened. If they are human, the discovery could reveal a secret space race already underway. With no radio contact to Earth, Rice sends a dangerous reconnaissance mission to uncover the truth. But what waits inside that second dome is stranger—and far more ironic—than any enemy Rice imagined. William Tenn delivers a sharp satirical twist in classic science fiction. With dry humor and razor-edged commentary on bureaucracy and military rivalry, “Project Hush” transforms a tense lunar expedition into a wonderfully absurd collision of secrecy and competition. William Tenn was the pen name of Philip Klass, one of science fiction’s distinctive satirical voices. His stories appeared in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy, and The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. His best-known works include “The Liberation of Earth,” “Child’s Play,” and “Brooklyn Project,” stories remembered for their wit and biting perspective on Cold War anxieties.