Control Group

"Control Group" by Roger D. Aycock is a science fiction story that tells of a team from Terran Reclamations as they venture to Alphard Six, a puzzling planet once home to the Hymenops aliens. The plot revolves around the team trying to figure out the story of people who seem to have come from an old Earth mission but are stuck in time, surrounded by alien control and confusion. We mainly follow Navigator Farrell and his partners Stryker and Gibson as they check out this seemingly empty world where after an unexpected crash, they are captured, then freed, and they discover that the current population are descendants of a human crew, brainwashed by the Hymenops to believe that they descended from a Terran Colony from Earth. Their investigation reveals questions about alien intentions and the effects of human adaptation through time while underscoring the idea of survival, alteration, and the difficulties of settling and living together across time and civilizations.