Randall Garrett 37 min read

Three minutes after an alien leaves his apartment, eight government agents force their way in, and Professor McLeod is in real trouble.

Randall Garrett's 1963 story sets the irascible, name-mispronounced Professor McLeod against a squad of young, fit Union Bureau of Investigation men, in a brisk tale of first contact, secrecy, and state power. Witty, tightly plotted social SF with Garrett's characteristic wry momentum. Read it for sharp, fast golden-age SF about what happens after the alien slips away.

In its time

Published in 1963, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

37 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Leo Summers