They went aboard the alien ship that had showed up at their hostel on the moon. Harriet and two other women, and six men counting the guide and Weaver. The ship was a red-lit cavern. The "crewman" turned out to be a hairy horror, a three-foot headless lump shaped like an eggplant, supported by four splayed legs and with an indefinite number of tentacles wriggling below the stalked eyes. "They're more like us than you'd think," said the guide. "They're mammals, they have a nervous organization very like ours, they're susceptible to some of our diseases -- which is very rare -- and they even share some of our minor vices." He opened his kit and offered the thing a plug of chewing tobacco, which was refused with much tentacle-waving, and a cigar, which was accepted. The creature stuck the cigar into the pointed tip of its body, just above the six beady black eyes, lit it with some sort of flameless lighter, and puffed clouds of smoke like a volcano.

Author Biography

Damon Francis Knight (1922 - 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor and critic. He is the author of "To Serve Man," a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm. Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "The Itching Hour," appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury. "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald Wolheim. An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible; it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight. At the time of his first story sale, he was living in New York, and was a member of the Futurians. One of his short stories describes paranormal disruption of a science fiction fan group and contains cameo appearances of various Futurians and others under thinly-disguised names, for instance, non-Futurian SF writer H. Beam Piper is identified as "H. Dreyne Fifer." Knight's forte was the short story; he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre. To the general public, he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man," a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone. It won a 50-year Retro Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950. Knight also became well known as a science fiction critic, a career which began when he wrote in 1945 that A. E. van Vogt "is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter." He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish a review.