Randall Garrett 38 min read

Like Balaam's ass, which saw the angel its master could not, a child may be more perceptive than an adult, being more straightforward, and more logical.

Randall Garrett's 1961 story is a clever military space opera built on a biblical parallel. Sharp, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a story where, as in the old tale of the seeing beast and the blind prophet, it is the overlooked and the underestimated who perceive the danger their betters cannot.

In its time

Published in 1961, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

John Schoenherr