Charles V. De Vet 28 min read

As official reporter on the project, the narrator is in Srtes' office when they bring the alien in, as tall as an average Zade, much the same color, but with no vestigial wings, and hair on his body.

Charles V. De Vet's 1958 story is a sharp first-contact and social-SF tale told from the aliens' side. Clever, perspective-flipping golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a captured 'specimen' turns out to be a human being, and the winged Zade scientists study him as we might study a strange and awkward beast.

In its time

Published in 1958, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

28 min read (a novelette, room for a turn or two).

Illustrated by

Virgil Finlay