This story was published in 1951.Henry Beam Piper (23 March 1904 – ca. 06 November 1964) was an American science fiction author. He wrote many short stories and several novels. He is best known for his extensive Terro-Human Future History series of stories and a shorter series of “Paratime” alternate history tales.Piper’s stories fall into two camps: stark space opera and or stories of cultural conflict or misunderstanding.A running theme in his work is that history repeats itself; past events will have direct and clear analogues in the future.Piper’s characterization was rooted in the notion of the self-reliant man: an individual able to take care of himself and both willing and able to tackle any situation which might arise. This is perfectly exemplified in a bit of dialogue found in his short story “Oomphel in the Sky” (1960): “He actually knows what has to be done and how to do it, and he’s going right ahead and doing it, without holding a dozen conferences and round-table discussions and giving everybody a fair and equal chance to foul things up for him.”As a result, his yarns tend towards the heroic and the conflict is usually driven externally.Piper was interested in General Semantics. Its principles, such as awareness of the limitations of knowledge, are apparent in his later works.He greatly influenced the writings of Michael McCollum, Isaac Asimov, F. Gwynplaine MacIntyre, Alfred Bester, Robert Adams, Jerry Pournelle, Charles Stross, and Elizabeth Bear.