Randall Garrett 22 min read

The neurosurgeon peels off his gloves after long, grueling hours, and the nurse warns him they're waiting outside, they'll probably have to be pushed out of the way for him to leave Surgery.

Randall Garrett's 1958 story is a clever psi-powers and social-SF tale structured like a piece of music. Sharp, inventive golden-age SF. Read it for an unusually crafted story where a delicate brain operation and its aftermath unfold movement by movement, toward a revelation about the mind itself.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller