Searchlight (short Story)

"Searchlight" is a very short science fiction story by Robert A. Heinlein about a little blind girl whose spaceship crashes on the Moon. The search for her takes advantage of her prodigious musical ability to locate her.

It was originally written in 1962 as part of an advertisement for Hoffman Electronics. Heinlein says that because it was so short it was much harder to write than writing novels. Perhaps because of this, it was the last short story Heinlein wrote; the remaining quarter-century of his career was devoted to writing novels and non-fiction essays.

"Searchlight" is anthologized in The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein, a collection of short stories published in 1966 and his Expanded Universe in 1980.

Robert A. Heinlein's Future History
Collections
  • The Past Through Tomorrow
  • The Man Who Sold the Moon
  • The Green Hills of Earth
  • Orphans of the Sky
  • Revolt in 2100
  • The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein
  • Expanded Universe
Short
stories
  • "Life-Line"
  • "Let There Be Light"
  • "The Roads Must Roll"
  • "Blowups Happen"
  • "The Man Who Sold the Moon"
  • "Delilah and the Space Rigger"
  • "Space Jockey"
  • "Requiem"
  • "The Long Watch"
  • "Gentlemen, Be Seated!"
  • "The Black Pits of Luna"
  • "It's Great to Be Back!"
  • "—We Also Walk Dogs"
  • "Searchlight"
  • "Ordeal in Space"
  • "The Green Hills of Earth"
  • "Logic of Empire"
  • "The Menace from Earth"
  • "If This Goes On—"
  • "Coventry"
  • "Misfit"
  • "Universe"
  • "Common Sense"
Novels
  • Methuselah's Children
  • Time Enough for Love
  • To Sail Beyond the Sunset
  • The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
  • The Number of the Beast

Famous quotes containing the word searchlight:

    “The press is no substitute for institutions. It is like the beam of a searchlight that moves restlessly about, bringing one episode and then another out of darkness into vision. Men cannot do the work of the world by this light alone. They cannot govern society by episodes, incidents, and eruptions. It is only when they work by a steady light of their own, that the press, when it is turned upon them, reveals a situation intelligible enough for a popular decision.”
    —Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)