The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Moralist, by Jack Taylor

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Title: The Moralist

Author: Jack Taylor

Illustrator: Weiss

Release Date: June 9, 2010 [EBook #32751]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

The Moralist

By JACK TAYLOR

Illustrated by WEISS

Aye, 'tis a difficult thing to be a lady on a far world--but
who needs them there?

* * * * *

There are exceptions to almost every rule and Xenon was one of them.
The rule in this particular case was the old cataloguers' adage that
cataloguing duty was never pleasant, often dangerous and always hard.
Xenon is the fourth planet of one of the stars investigated some seven
or eight years ago by the battleship _Terra_ on her swing around the
edge of the Black Hole.

Unequipped for exploration, the _Terra_ hadn't bothered to land on the
planet, but instead had taken only the usual gravitational and
atmosphere readings and then had continued on her long mapping patrol.
She had slowed just long enough to send back her report on tight beam
to Venus Relay Station and propose the name of Xenon, "the unknown."
After all, a planet with point nine Earth gravity and almost twenty
per cent oxygen in its atmosphere was well worth a name rather than a
number.

About a year later, the preliminary exploration ship arrived and spent
several weeks mapping and testing this, that and the other thing.
Then she went home and wrote her report--and what a report it was! The
thing read like a Chamber of Commerce bulletin that had been sponsored
by a subdivider. All it needed was a couple of ads offering some
choice business locations for sale and it would have been co