Elaine Wilber 21 min read

Two months after landing, Ship UXB-69311 has been refitted into a country club, an elegant bar in the bunkroom, furnishings looted from the fled natives' village, for the crew's long stay.

Elaine Wilber's 1961 story is a sharp, ironic first-contact and social-SF tale. Clever, pointed golden-age SF. Read it for a story where a pampered exploration crew makes itself comfortable at the expense of a conquered world, and the hero of the title emerges from a most unexpected quarter.

In its time

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

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Paul Orban