James H. Schmitz 1 hr 8 min read

On a rickety lake dock, con man and blackmailer Barney Chard waits for his mark, a retired physicist who is, in truth, potentially the wealthiest man in the country.

James H. Schmitz's 1961 story pairs a smooth operator with a reclusive genius and a clandestine invention in a sharp first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, surprising golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a fishing-dock swindle opens onto something far stranger than either man expects.

In its time

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

Reading it

1 hr 8 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Roy G. Krenkel