The crew of the Clarion had found the remains of civilizations in decreasing states of advancement the farther they got from Earth. Had they all destroyed themselves in a kind of contagious Armageddon, or was there an advanced alien species that was destroying these civilizations as they moved through space?

"Battleground" appeared in "Fantastic Universe," July 1954, on pages 33 to 43.

Lester del Rey (June 2, 1915 – May 10, 1993) was an American science fiction author and editor. He was the author of many books in the juvenile "Winston Science Fiction" series, and the editor at Del Rey Books, the fantasy and science fiction imprint of Ballantine Books.

Del Rey first started publishing stories in pulp magazines in the late 1930s, at the dawn of the so-called Golden Age of Science Fiction. He was associated with the most prestigious science fiction magazine of the era, "Astounding Science Fiction," from the time its editor John W. Campbell published his first short story in the April 1938 issue: "The Faithful", already under the name Lester del Rey. The December 1938 issue featured his story "Helen O'Loy" which was selected for the prestigious anthology "The Science Fiction Hall of Fame." By the end of 1939 he had also placed stories in "Weird Tales" and "Unknown" (Campbell), which featured more horror and more fantasy respectively.

In 1952, his first three novels were published in the "Winston" juvenile series, one of which ("Rocket Jockey") appearing in an Italian-language edition in the same year. In the 1950s, del Rey was one of the main authors writing science fiction for adolescents, along with Robert A Heinlein and Andre Norton.

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"Mesmerizing Galaxy" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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