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To Serve Man
"To Serve Man" is a science fiction short story written by Damon Knight. It first appeared in the November 1950 issue of ''Galaxy Science Fiction'' and has been reprinted a number of times, including in ''Frontiers in Space'' (1955), ''Far Out'' (1961), and ''The Best of Damon Knight'' (1976).〔(Index to Science Fiction Anthologies and Collections )〕 The title is a double entendre meaning either "to perform a service for humanity" or "to serve a human as food".
== Synopsis ==
The story is set in the United States in a time that appears to be contemporaneous with the story's 1950 publication date. It is told in first-person narrative by a United Nations translator. The story opens at a special session of the UN where three alien emissaries, the pig-like "Kanamit", are testifying that the purpose of their mission to Earth is to bring humans "the peace and plenty which we ourselves enjoy, and which we have in the past brought to other races throughout the galaxy". The aliens soon supply Earth with cheap unlimited power, boundless supplies of food, a device that disables all modern armies by suppressing all explosions, and they commence work on drugs for prolonging life. As a further token of friendship, they allow humans to visit their home planet via ten-year "exchange groups".
While the narrator has trusted the Kanamit from the time of their arrival, his friend and fellow translator Gregori has not. Gregori dismisses any notion of disinterested altruism and is certain the Kanamit must have an ulterior motive underlying their actions. Determined to discover what the Kanamit stand to gain by helping humans, Gregori takes a job at the Kanamit embassy to learn their language. This affords him access to a Kanamit-English dictionary, and he later steals a Kanamit book, hoping to translate it. The narrator has also left the UN to work at the Kanamit embassy, and working together with Gregori, the two manage to determine that the book's title is ''How to Serve Man''. Two weeks later, the narrator returns from a trip to find Gregori distraught. Gregori says that he has managed to translate the first paragraph of the book and has determined that "it's a cookbook".
抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』
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