Edward Peattie 21 min read

'We drop in just three c.c. from this here tube,' Rocco says, botching the titration, and Whitemarsh corrects him: the acid comes from the burette, and the graduations are milliliters, not c.c.

Edward Peattie's 1955 story is a wry hard-SF and social-SF tale of class and expertise in a future lab. Clever, pointed golden-age SF. Read it for a story where the friction between skilled 'laboratorians' and the 'techno' who instructs them opens onto a sharp comment on knowledge, work, and who really runs things.

In its time

Published in 1955, during the 1950s, post-war optimism meets cold war anxiety.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

Ed Emshwiller