The Repairman

Harry Harrison's The Repairman follows a sharp-witted interstellar troubleshooter whose attempt to quit his job is crushed by a contract his ruthless boss has made impossible to escape. Sent to investigate a mysterious ancient hyperspace beacon on a world near Proxima Centauri, he finds himself trapped in the lonely, high-stakes work of keeping the galaxy connected. What begins as a routine maintenance assignment becomes a lively mix of hard science fiction, corporate pressure, and dry, fast-talking humor. The mission grows far more complicated when he discovers the beacon buried inside a colossal stone pyramid built by the local inhabitants. Now he must deal with alien customs, language barriers, and a wary lizard-like population already alerted by his presence, all while trying not to make a bad situation worse. Clever, reluctant, and constantly outmaneuvered, the repairman must rely on ingenuity and nerve in a comic first-contact adventure where technical problems and cultural misunderstandings collide. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.