Sabotage on Sulfur Planet-Jack Vance novelette

Sabotage on Sulfur Planet-Jack Vance novelette

Sabotage on Sulfur Planet is a 37/38 page novelette that was published first in June 1952 in Startling Stories magazine.  The main character, Robert Smith, is a Star Control agent who is assigned the duty of investigating an unscrupulous spaceship captain named Captain Plum who seems to have located an undiscovered world with life on it.  But the captain is not talking and plans to return to the planet to take advantage of the creatures that inhabit the planet even though the "fuzz-balls" as he calls them are "blind, deaf and dumb."  Somehow the creatures possess jewels that are attached to them.  Smith does not want Star Control to find out about the planet because he wants to return in secret and harvest the jewels to sell them. While investigating Plum, however, Smith ends up being kidnapped by him and impressed as one of the crew.  The criminal investigator has been forced to join the thieves and suspects Plum will kill him after the mission so that no witnesses can report him.  Ethical and anthropological issues about exploration and exploitation of other cultures are dealt with in this charming old fashioned sci fi story.  I’ve read this three times and most recently rated it a 4 “Really liked it.”

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Lost Moons (1982)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Gadget Stories (2005)

Included in the Jack Vance collection titled Magic Highways: The Early Jack Vance, Volume 3 (2015)

Included in the Vance collection titled Sail 25 and Other Stories (2017 Spatterlight)