Alan Edward Nourse 23 min read

Down a dank, musty prison corridor on Altair, a fastidious Terran diplomat follows a bear-like alien guard, sent to free a con man who has, incredibly, been caught by the locals.

Alan E. Nourse's 1954 story spins a clever first-contact and social-SF tale from alien law and a trickster's plight. Witty, sharp golden-age SF. Read it for a delightful story where the letter of an alien law becomes the key to a very human swindle.

In its time

Published in 1954, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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