The Project Gutenberg EBook of This One Problem, by M. C. Pease

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Title: This One Problem

Author: M. C. Pease

Release Date: July 8, 2009 [EBook #29354]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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_Piracy in the past has acquired the gaudy technicolor of high
romance. In the present, piracy is as tawdry as tabloid headlines.
But piracy in the far future, when presented as vividly as in this
story, can be scary stuff._

this
one
problem

_by ... M. C. Pease_

The shortest distance between two points may be
the long way around--and a path of dishonor may
well turn into the high road to virtue.

Marc Polder, Resident Comptroller of Torran, strolled idly down the
dusty littered path that passed for a street. In the half-light of the
pint-sized moon overhead the town looked almost romantic. One day, when
civilization had at last been brought to these Asteroid bases, memory
would make Torran heroic. But now, with the fact before the eyes, it was
merely dirty and squalid. Only the scum of the Solar System called it
home.

Idly Marc Polder pushed a swinging door aside and entered what passed on
Torran for a restaurant. Pushing his way through the tables until he saw
his only aide, Female Personnel Manager Lee Treynor, he sat down.

"What's new?" he asked.

"Not a thing." But for a certain softness of voice and curve of
unmade-up lips, Lee could have passed for a boy. Her light hair was
short, she wore a man's coveralls. She added, "Only the usual murder,
arson and brigandage that you don't want to hear about."

"Don't let such trifles get you down," said Marc with a crooked
half-smile.

"I'm fed up," the girl said shortly. "I must have been still wet behind
the ears when I agreed to come out here two months ago. I thought I was
going to help establish a place where decent people could live and work.
So far I've just watched my boss swig Venerian swamp beer with the worst
elements in town, and do nothing about the lawless