The Pod in the Barrier

"The Pod in the Barrier" is a science fiction novelette by Theodore Sturgeon. It was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction in 1957. It is a story about a group of people in a spaceship who are part of a campaign to defeat a barrier around a region of space, in order to get to the riches within. Like many stories by Sturgeon, it has characters with pronounced physical and psychological defects, and focuses on the power of love.