Quote:
Originally Posted by mr obvious
It might not be cooler looking but there's an AC Clarke short story about an space-faring spy who lands on one of Mars' moons (sorry for lack of details, book not anywhere near me). He's pursued by this fully armed and operational battle..err, ship. But, because of the size of the moon, and the problems the battleship encountered in trying to turn and maintain any sort of orbit around the tiny moon, the spy was able to avoid capture simply by walking in pace with the ship, staying just at or below the horizon. Apparently, the commander of the ship was demoted or discharged and the final line of the story was (paraphrased): "They just couldn't see how the fastest ship in the fleet couldn't catch a man in a space-suit."
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“Hide and Seek”. I always hated that story because it relies on what I consider the completely unforgivable plot device: “everyone is a moron.” The spy is heavily armed; the ship carries no personal weapons AT ALL, nor any portable detection equipment. IOW, the idea of hostile landing never occurred to anyone. Since armed individual spies are known to exist at all, the above is an absurd lack of foresight.