Gordon R. Dickson 11 min read

Terri Mac sees through the little party at a glance, a clumsy setup, but the old man propped up in the corner, waving the guests out, is playing a deeper and deadlier game.

Gordon R. Dickson's 1953 story is a sharp psi-and-space-opera tale of intrigue and telepathy. Clever, tense golden-age SF from a master. Read it for a story where a powerful official's perceptiveness meets a trap laid by a dying man with nothing left to lose.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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