This, along with "It Looks Like You’re Trying To Take Over The World"[0] are two of my favorite short pieces of speculative fiction that embody the Frederik Pohl quote, "a good science fiction story should be able to predict not the automobile but the traffic jam."

This story, a sequel, and other great short stories are collected in his book of ten short stories "Valuable Humans in Transit".[1] I'm a big fan of supporting indie scifi offered with DRM-free ebooks! [I am not affiliated with qntm despite my enthusiasm]

[0]: It Looks Like You’re Trying To Take Over The World: https://gwern.net/fiction/clippy

[1]: Valuable Humans in Transit: https://qntm.org/vhitaos