Donald E. Westlake 9 min read

Guiding the mail launch down behind the Moon on his walking tentacles, Captain Ebor goes to meet the base commander, for the watchers of this lonely outpost serve a patient, unglamorous duty.

Donald E. Westlake's 1961 story is a wry colonization and social-SF tale. Clever, thoughtful golden-age SF. Read it for a genial story told from the aliens' side, where patient observers keep a long watch over Earth, in a well-turned golden-age piece, its title from Milton, about the quiet dignity of those who only stand and wait.

In its time

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

Reading it

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