Robert Sheckley 12 min read

'That hand didn't move, did it?' As Guardian ships protect Earth, the crew stares at the detector's needle on zero, for how do you defend a race from an enemy who can seize a man's mind?

Robert Sheckley's 1953 story is a taut, tense first-contact and military-SF tale. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a claustrophobic story of nerve and paranoia aboard a lonely guardian ship, where the deadliest enemy is invisible, silent, and may already be inside the minds of the men on watch.

In its time

Published in 1953, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Roy G. Krenkel