The Keeper

The Keeper is a science fiction short story written by H. Beam Piper first published in 1957.

Evil men had stolen his treasure, and Raud set out with his deer rifle and his great dog Brave to catch the thieves before they could reach the Starfolk. That the men had negatron pistols meant little - Raud was the Keeper....

The Keeper is a part of Piper’s Terro-Human Future History series, and has the distinction of being the last one in the series, being set in the 301st Century A.E. (Atomic Era).

The old men speak of a time many years ago when hundreds of starships were visible in the nighttime sky, but now the world is old, poor and forgotten. Raud the Keeper is surprised one day when a local man named Vahr Farg’s son brings two men from another world to his home. It seems that the men are scholars who have heard of the great crown that Raud is charged with keeping, and they wish to see it…

It made its first appearance in the July 1957 issue of Venture Science Fiction.

Total Running Time (TRT): 45 min.

Henry Beam Piper (1904-1964) 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, such as Space Viking, or stories of cultural conflict or misunderstanding, such as Little Fuzzy or the Paratime stories.