The Return

"The Return" by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire is a science fiction short story published in 1954. More than 250 years after nuclear war devastated Earth, explorers from Fort Ridgeway encounter a fortified community with a mysterious religion centered on a god who died in battle and will return. The community believes this god taught deductive reasoning and observation. As the explorers seek their help retrieving precious microfilmed books, they discover the community may believe one of them is their awaited deity—a misconception with dangerous implications. (This is an automatically generated summary.)