The Crystal Crypt is a 1954 science fiction short story by Philip K. Dick. It is set many years in the future as Earth (now called Terra) and Mars...settled through many generations...are on the brink of interplanetary war. The last flight to Terra has been launched from the Red Planet, but suddenly it is diverted to the moon Deimos and the passengers are searched and interrogated with a machine that detects lies: it seems that three people...two men and a woman...had destroyed a major Martian city and they are suspected of being on the ship. They let the ship go, however, and a man named Thacher, also a passenger on the Earth-bound ship, encounters three people...two men and a woman...sitting together. And the story goes on from there...
The Crystal Crypt is a good example of the limitations that short stories impose on both the writer and reader. You know that the story will only last a few more pages and that a twisted ending of some sort is waiting at the end...so you're very conscious of any clues that the plot and characters are revealing. In this tale, the clues are screaming at the reader...I figured out the ending very early on, although there was one mystery that I admit I was a little surprised at its revelation. As for the Earth vs. Mars scenario, remember that this was written at the height of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Bloc countries...we had just finished a brutal war against them in Korea. So I'm sure when it came out, the receptive and conditioned reading public had no problem making analogies. Since I've always enjoyed Philip K. Dick's writing, I enjoyed The Crystal Crypt as well...although it's definitely not one of his best works...
You can read The Crystal Crypt through the Gutenberg site...here is a link to the story: [link]...
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