Randall Garrett Robert Silverberg 7 min read

Torlyn Khy smiles grimly: his disguise has completely fooled the Earthmen, who don't suspect a Valdorian spy walks among the engineers building the Skyjumper and its new teleportation drive.

Randall Garrett and Robert Silverberg's 1957 story is a taut first-contact and space-opera tale of espionage and superscience. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story where an alien spy schemes to steal or sabotage humanity's war-winning new drive, and the incomplete theft of the title turns the tables in a clever twist.

In its time

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

Reading it

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