James H. Schmitz 25 min read

A tingle from his wrist-alarm sends Dr. Halder Leorm to the radiation room, where he watches, through a spy-device, his new assistant lying unconscious on the carpet of his distant home.

James H. Schmitz's 1962 story is a tense AI-and-first-contact tale from his Federation of the Hub setting. Sharp, gripping golden-age SF. Read it for a story of hidden identity and infiltration, where a scientist discovers something deeply wrong with a colleague, and the other likeness proves a threat far greater than one man.

In its time

Published in 1962, during the 1960s, new wave revolutionizes the genre.

Reading it

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

Illustrated by

George Schelling