Free Writers of the Future, Volume 29 by L. Ron Hubbard Page B

slow to catch him. It was good for the big guy to learn his limits. Lester would end up with hand-shaped bruises all over his back. Occasionally Diego would be outwitted, but more often he’d slip in a puddle of Lester’s sweat and get tackled. Lester would sit on Diego until he nearly passed out. It was great fun to watch.
    Jack and Diego got their mission before us. A discovery ship had found signs of technology on their target planet. Nothing definite. They were supposed to confirm or deny intelligence. Turned out the natives were extremely intelligent. They ambushed Jack and Diego. The natives figured out the latch system of their suits and extracted them. Then the creatures carefully, minutely, dissected them alive with razor-sharp stone tools. Diego’s suit camera recorded everything until it was splattered with blood. Suit mikes continued to transmit their ongoing screams.
    When the ship confirmed that they were dead, it sterilized a kilometer around their bodies to ensure they didn’t contaminate the native population. Then it returned to Base.
    I suppose it should have made me feel better knowing that the ones who got Jack and Diego were fried. It didn’t.
    Lester and I cleaned up their rooms. Diego had piles of clean clothes on his bunk and a basket of dirty laundry in the corner. His desk was covered with pictures of his five-year-old daughter, the large brown eyes and ready smile engaging and harrowing. He’d hung the walls of his room with her drawings. Lester told me that Diego had joined the Scouts so that he could support her. We put together some of his things so the girl would have a remembrance of her father.
    Jack’s room was orderly. We found his will under a paperweight on the top of his desk. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never heard Jack talk about family. He left everything in trust to Diego’s daughter. He’d never met the girl.
    It’s times like this when I envy women. I remember when Miyuki lost a friend. She went on a two-day crying jag and felt better afterward. Lester and I didn’t have that option. So we went to the bar that night. We ordered shots of Ouzo, made morbid toasts, downed the shots and remembered times with Jack and Diego. I helped Lester back to his room. He threw up and crashed on the floor. I sat propped in my bunk, world-spinning-around-my-head drunk, unable to sleep. We barely made the memorial service next day.
    -6-
    I t was four months before our mission came up. When we left, Lester’s room was in order. This was twenty-one for me.
    We sat on the bridge of the Scout ship and studied our next planet. It was blue. Not blue, green and brown—blue. What land there was barely registered on a planetary view.
    Lester gazed at the globe openmouthed. “Why are we checking this place out? There’s no land for humans to live on.”
    I zeroed in on the designated area of interest. “There’s an undersea plateau. If the planet’s suitable, they’ll haul in a couple of asteroids, orbit them around the planet, break them into pieces and use the pieces to build up the land level. I’ve seen it done before.”
    â€œWhy go to all that effort?”
    â€œAquaculture. They introduce Terran fish into the seas and harvest them later. It’s risky, but it can make huge profits.”
    â€œWhat about the native lifeforms?”
    â€œThat’s where we come in. We’ve got to determine if there’s any chance of intelligence in this ocean. If we don’t find anything, they’ll introduce nonnative species and probably destroy any native species that prey on the ones humans want to farm.”
    â€œSo unless we find something intelligent, this whole planet becomes one big fish farm?”
    I patted Lester’s shoulder. “You can’t get too involved in these planets. We don’t make the ultimate decisions. You want to get involved in that, go into politics. But