Keith Laumer 11 min read

A general bucking for his second star surrounds a mysterious gray object at the edge of a wood lot, impervious to every tool, and still making sounds from inside.

Keith Laumer's 1961 story pits military brass against an inscrutable landed craft, mining sharp irony from brute force meeting the unknown. Witty, pointed first-contact SF. Read it for a clever, satirical tale about how the army greets a visitor it can't crack open.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

11 min read (a short story, a single idea, delivered and gone).

Illustrated by

Bob Ritter