Arrgh! Several treads lately could be answered with examples of classic sci-fi short stories I remember, but I could not recall the authors or title!
The spooky thing is that I was going to post for help identifying TWO sci-fi tales when I noticed Kallessa got the same idea! Different tales though:
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A ship full of explorers gets close to a high spinning super dense planet to investigate the reported primitive life in it; time on the surface runs lots faster than in the ship in orbit. After seeing curious patterns in the surface grow, an alien ship is launched from the planet and contacts the human ship. It turned out that the explorers’ ship was the reason for the aliens to develop the technology to investigate what was orbiting their planet.
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The hero of this other tale sold his soul to a devil (called Shapur?). In a final effort to get his soul back, a test is made: the devil puts the man into a room size sealed box that has no exits, if he finds a way to escape he will be out of the contract. He had no way to get out (but, because he was in the hereafter?/In the fourth dimension?). He realized that time was not a constrain there, so he just “moved” to the past where the box did not exist.
I’ve read the second one, it’s in a collection I have somewhere, but I can’t remember who wrote it.
The first one was an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, though I’m quite willing to believe it was a short story before that. I just don’t know what it might have been.
The second one is “Gimmicks Three” by Isaac Asimov. It was originally published under the title “The Brazen Locked Room”.
Took me a long time to get that last one, since I couldn’t remember the title and couldn’t find my copy of “The Far Ends of Time and Earth”, which contains the story. But I was sure it was Asimov, so I just scanned an online listing of all his stories (which is a whole bunch) until I recognized it.
Is the second Dragon’s Egg by Dr. Forward? I read part of it LONG ago, and I remember it involved fast-living life that lived on a neutron star and they developed spaceflight with the help of humans who were observing them.
Yes! Badtz Maru that must be it! I was going to mention that the aliens were in a Neutron star but I thought that was so bizarre that I decided I was not remembering it well. So I turn it into a “plain” high-density planet! I guess I know enough about neutron stars to take the fun away form a great classic tale!
Many thanks to you and Saltire for all your help.