The Moralist

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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 sevenor eight years ago by the battleship _Terra_ on her swing around theedge 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 complete.

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