Randall Garrett 29 min read

Romm Parmay eases into Interstellar Communications Central and sneaks up behind moody Kerrman at Number One board, 'Boo!', as five hundred operators murmur at their screens.

Randall Garrett's 1956 story is a genial first-contact and space-opera tale of interstellar communication. Fun, clever golden-age SF. Read it for a light, character-driven story set in a galactic message-relay center, where a bit of office horseplay frames a sharp puzzle about contact across the void.

In its time

Published in 1956, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Robert Engle