Birds of a Feather

J. F. Corrigan runs the Corrigan Institute, a booming interstellar "zoo" that recruits alien specimens for the one place they all dream of seeing: Earth.

On Ghryne, his office is packed with hopeful applicants, desperate petitioners, and bizarre creatures whose longing for Terra is matched only by Corrigan's talent for turning it into profit. Brisk, satirical, and full of sharp alien color, the story follows Corrigan as he sorts genuine prospects from scams, all while keeping one eye on the bottom line and the other on the trouble his conscience keeps inviting. That trouble arrives in the form of Ildwar Gorb, a human-looking con man who claims to be an alien, then proves too clever to dismiss.

As Corrigan battles clan vendettas, a tragic marriage plea, a faked suicide, and a humiliating police investigation, Gorb—soon revealed as Mike Higgins—keeps outmaneuvering him. Useful, charming, and dangerously ambitious, Higgins helps build the Institute's success by turning deception into spectacle, recruiting talent, and even organizing the exhibits into a union. But his real demand is a share of the business, and Corrigan realizes too late that he may have hired the one rival smart enough to take over his empire.

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.