Searchlight (short story)

"Searchlight" is a very short science fiction story by American writer 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.

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v t e Robert A. Heinlein's Future History
Collections	The Man Who Sold the Moon (1950) The Green Hills of Earth (1951) Revolt in 2100 (1953) Orphans of the Sky (1963) The Past Through Tomorrow (1967)
Novels	Methuselah's Children (1958) The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (1966) Time Enough for Love (1973) The Number of the Beast (1980) The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (1985) To Sail Beyond the Sunset (1987) The Pursuit of the Pankera (2020)
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"
Characters	Lazarus Long The Notebooks of Lazarus Long Delos D. Harriman Jubal Harshaw Competent man Maureen Johnson Andrew Jackson Libby Hazel Stone
Related	The Worlds of Robert A. Heinlein (1966) Expanded Universe (1980)