The watchers by George H. Smith
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The watchers by George H. Smith is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It follows humanity’s frontier surveillance effort as it collides with a rival oxygen-breathing species, focusing on a lone sentinel tasked with detecting and warning of alien raids. The likely topic is the perilous work of space “watchdogs” guarding human colonies from hostile incursions—and the unexpected form those guardians can take. A solitary Watcher stationed on
a bleak moon called Thirty spots a Rumi raiding squadron and triggers a hyperwave alarm to warn nearby human worlds. As a Terran yacht, the Star Lady, is shot down and crash-lands on Thirty, the Rumi dispatch a landing party to capture any survivors. Defying orders to stay hidden, the Watcher trails the raiders, uses guile and a captured heat gun to thin their numbers, and snatches the wounded survivor—a young woman—out of their grasp after a night hunt through the rugged terrain. In the closing reveal, the narrator is shown to be a genetically engineered, hyper-intelligent dog—one of humanity’s literal “watchdogs of space,” bred to guard the far frontier. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
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About this eBook
| Author | Smith, George H. (George Henry), 1922-1996 |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Jones, Robert Gibson, 1889-1969 |
| Title | The watchers |
| Original Publication | Evanston, Illinois: Palmer Publications, Inc., 1953. |
| Series Title | Produced from Universe Science Fiction, March 1954 (Vol. 1, No. 4.). |
| Credits | Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Luminist Archive) |
| Language | English |
| LoC Class | PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature |
| Subject | Science fiction |
| Subject | Short stories |
| Subject | Space warfare -- Fiction |
| Category | Text |
| eBook-No. | 78738 |
| Release Date | May 24, 2026 |
| Copyright | Public domain in the USA. |
| Downloads | 750 downloads in the last 30 days. |
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