“Ole Doc Methuselah”
Published under the pen name Rene Lafayette

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Publication date: October 1947

Original publication: Astounding Science Fiction

Genre: Science Fiction

Series: Ole Doc Methuselah

Story description: Ole Doc Methuselah is one of 600 elite, Solder of Light Immortals, who have dedicated themselves to the preservation of mankind, combatting disease, corruption, and desperate perversities of human behavior along the intergalactic spaceways. With his devoted companion, the four-armed, one-meter-high, gypsum-eating, book-reading Hippocrates, Doc lands on the planet Spico, initially to do some fishing. But instead—ignoring the codes of authority under which he operates—Doc finds himself administering summary justice to a man who has heartlessly swindled the inhabitants of the city. When a girl discovers that Ole Doc is 700 years old, her infatuation with him ends abruptly, and Doc and Hippocrates decamp for a new destination.

Currently available in the book Ole Doc Methuselah.