Plus X
by Eric Frank Russell, Astounding Science Fiction (June, 1956)
collected in “4 for the Future” ed. Groff Conklin (Pyramid, 1959), pp. 108-160.
Russell’s impish SF novella pits a lone POW caught deep behind enemy lines, armed with nothing but his wits (and thence an imaginary co-conspirator!), against the entire alien war effort. Leeming’s captors might be a tad credulous but this is terrific fun.
Human Man’s Burden
by Robert Sheckley, Galaxy Science Fiction (September, 1956)
reprinted 12 Great Classics of Science Fiction, ed. Groff Conklin (Fawcett, 1963), pp. 57-71.
A disarming little story that, in setting itself up as a comedy, appears to make one point about men, women and the human condition, switches as if to make another, then turns out to have been about robot sentience and master/slave dynamics.