Randall Garrett Robert Silverberg 10 min read

Captain Johnny Martin's sealed orders are simple enough: fetch an ambassador from Aldebaran VII for delicate talks, treat him with utmost courtesy, and, oh yes, the ambassador is bringing a pet.

Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg's 1957 story is a genial first-contact and social-SF comedy. Fun, wry golden-age SF. Read it for a light tale where a starship captain's routine diplomatic ferry job is complicated, delightfully, by an alien VIP's insistence on traveling with his rather unusual pet.

In its time

Published in 1957, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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