Randall Garrett 21 min read

We may find new worlds and build smarter robots, but there'll still be slick operators out to turn a fast buck, like Anson Drake, drinking on a planet whose powerful men want him dead.

Randall Garrett's 1956 story is a witty caper-in-space starring a cool, capable rogue. Fun, fast golden-age SF. Read it for a genial heist tale of a charming con man who thrives on danger and needs to be smarter than Einstein to pull it off.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay