Scree prepared her latest report on local hunting activities. On the one hand, the increase in hunts per day had worked well and the number of people at the resort had returned back to normal capacity. That was easy to write. The next part was tricky.

  It was a good news, bad news situation regarding the same circumstances.

  Good news - casualties were down and deaths were rare. Plenty of happy hunters being welcomed by their relieved friends and family. Insurance reimbursements and payments to reduce news of negative events were correspondingly down, so profitability was up.

  Bad news - post hunt interviews had started to express a distressing trend. Hunters were increasingly mentioning their hunt was slightly, and Scree hated to say it, boring. Boring was bad. Very bad. A boring hunter planet was an ignored and avoided planet.

  Scree lazily scrolled through the reports of the previous week’s hunts trying to see if she could spot anything different. Nothing. All looked normal. She quickly became bored and thought maybe the hunters were right. Her headed nodded into a micro sleep and her hand moved. She sat back upright with a start and saw her hand had skimmed back to before the hunting pause over two weeks ago.

  Her eyes grew wide in astonishment.

  Then she moved back to the recent hunts.

  They were not the same. Where were the dirtlings? The ones that made hunts - how should she phrase this? - interesting? Sure, casualties, damage and even death were higher, but more importantly, interest, excitement and even more critically, ratings were up.

  The Universe 7 communicators had built in cameras. Although it couldn’t do much without global data network support, it still recorded. Hunters were told that video recording could not be performed while on a hunt due to data space restrictions, but there was only insufficient space for the hunter’s recordings. So long as the lens on the front or back was not covered, the device recorded continuously.

  That is how they could get such excellent footage for the high rating weekly show, “Come on a Little Hunt with Me”. Hunters were told that the footage was just a result of random footage captured by high resolution cameras from the orbiting HTI shuttle, enhanced with digital processing created from the after hunt interviews. However, a simple analysis of the angles and action would make it obvious the footage was a bit more up close and personal.

  Rumours disagreeing with the official stories were squashed by a generous dosing of “conspiracy theory” rebuttals. HTI had introduced that phrase “Conspiracy Theory” and others after observing the Dirtling transmissions. It worked surprisingly well for squashing inconvenient views.

  Scree pondered how to present this to HTI headquarters. Perhaps she should investigate why and how the change happened before her next report. Yes. That would be better.

  This report would just show the good news part.

  She finished the good report and sent it off in the red data pod.

  Now, how would she discover what had changed?

  ****

  Clinton sat with Hendon and Harrick around the round table in their quarters. The last week or so since resumption of hunts had been quiet.

  “Too quiet,” mumbled Hendon.

  “What was that, Hendon?” asked Harrick.

  Hendon took a sip of his Fizzy and said, “Well, Sir. Something is different. Casualties are down, and the chatter in the public eating establishments is different. Quieter. Less boisterous.”

  Clinton added, “I have been joining Hendon in his after hunt chats. By the way, you are really good at getting the hunters to talk openly, Hendon.” Clinton tipped his bottle of Fizzy towards Hendon in acknowledgement and Harrick smiled in appreciation.

  “Anyway,” continued Clinton, “Before the pause in hunting, the parties came back exhilarated and excited about close runs they encountered. Injuries were more common and deaths too. Something has changed. Do you think X Bear might know something?”

  Harrick frowned and said, “We have no way of contacting him, I’m afraid. As he said, ‘Thanks Harrick, I’ll contact you if we need to.’ He said ‘we’ as if I would agree, but before I could push further he had gone.”

  “Show off,” all three said at the same time.

  “Even so,” said Harrick, “he may know but I don’t think he would tell us. Clinton, you’re a bit of a technology specialist. Can you investigate a little for us?”

  Clinton smiled, “Actually, Sir, now that you mention it…”

  He pulled a small box from his pocket and placed it on the table, “I have been monitoring the Dirtling broadcasts and here is a recent broadcast. It is repeated everywhere.”

  A small display appeared above the box and a sample of the messages spread throughout Earth about the alien invasion and the Global Warning System were shown.

  “When did these broadcasts start?” asked Harrick.

  “Not long after we rescued Heron and Byron,” said Clinton.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Hey,” interrupted Hendon, “Where did those two go?”

  Clinton answered, “After they returned under their assumed names, they were whisked off to the shuttle and returned to their home. I think X Bear wanted them out of HTI controlled space.”

  “Yes,” said Harrick, “That would be safer. My discussions with Scree revealed they didn’t want to mention that Heron and Byron had been captured, so we came up with a reason they lost their communicator and our rescue was just a routine event. Better for everyone that way.”

  “So,” said Hendon, “The Dirtlings realised that we were here to stay, so they decided to minimise Dirtling casualties. That’s pretty clever.”

  Harrick sighed, and Clinton asked, “What? Isn’t that a good thing, Sir?”

  Harrick said, “This is an example of the ‘Law of Unintended Consequences’. Yes, this will reduce casualties to Dirtlings and Hunters too, although I don’t think the Dirtlings care for us very much. But what else will it do? Think back to the start of our discussions.”

  Now Hendon groaned, “Oh, no.”

  Clinton looked at both of them, “What?”

  “Why do we have hunts?” asked Harrick.

  “To relieve the inbuilt tendencies for violent behaviour. By having an outlet, the Federation has been free of war for five hundred years,” Clinton said confidently, repeating the official story.

  “Kid,” said Hendon, looking hard at Clinton, “Have you been on the streets, or the less travelled parts of your home or other planets?”

  “Well, after finishing my studies with my family tutor, I attended the officer academy, then …” Clinton began and Hendon interrupted.

  “So the answer is ‘No’ then. Violence isn’t solved by using violence against innocent prey. It is just bottled up and experienced in many smaller, some larger, acts of aggression.”

  Harrick said, “So, think about why HTI is here. Are they here for the benefit of the Federation and all its peace loving citizens?”

  This time Clinton paused and considered what he had seen while working with Harrick. He then thought about the Dirtlings and the obvious mis-classification of them as “Non Compatible” that would not be corrected.

  Tired of waiting for the evidence to build in Clintons analytical mind, Hendon said, “It’s the credits, kid. Riches and wealth and power. It all comes down to the credits.”

  Clinton sat back and was about to deny the charge, but looking at the earnest gazes of Harrick and Hendon, he paused.

  “Ohhh,” he said, “So less exciting, means less ratings which means less hunters which means less credits.”

  Clinton remembered the destruction of the Dirtling space station which had to be removed as it interfered with the Non Compatible rating.

  “So, when HTI realises that the hunts are less exciting and so bring in less income, they will do something?” asked Clinton.

  Hendon nodded and Harrick said, “They’ll send in the clean-up crew to clean up the mess and bring their ratings back up.”

  “The clean-up crew?” asked Clinton.

  “Yeah,” said Hendon, “We met him. Hortense the being of few words and big guns. The clean up crew.”

  ****

  Scree couldn’t believe it. On her screen was a televised message shared across Dirt telling everyone to stay away from hunters! She had finally bothered to look at some of the Dirtling transmissions and the answer to her issue was right there in front of her the whole time. Those stupid Dirtlings were telling everyone to destroy the fun of her hunts.

  How could they do that? They were classed as Non Compatible. Up till now HTI had been nice and were willing to ignore obvious signs of potential misclassification, but Scree now looked harder at how the Dirtlings had made her life difficult.

  So, amongst all the space junk orbiting Dirt was functioning equipment which transmitted data to all corners of the planet. That was obviously not compatible with the Not Compatible tag and screamed for reclassification to Off Limits. That had never happened so it wouldn’t happen now. Certainly not if she wanted to keep her job.

  With a grim determination she wrote a new report. Bad news was better if it provided a solution. The solution here was a method to clean up the problem. And clean up was Hortense’s job description. At least, it was the job description he had in internal HTI reports. Officially his title was HTI Support Services which sounded much more … corporate.

  ****

  Patter read the latest report from Scree from the HTI resort on Dirt’s moon. The report just before this one was excellent. Rising profits, increased customer satisfaction and more hunts per day. There were also less casualties and deaths which was interesting, but not very important.

  Scree’s new report was a bit of a bombshell.

  Boring! They were getting feedback that the hunts were boring. Trotter had told him that the Public Relations team were taking longer to piece together interesting footage for the weekly broadcast, but in the end, it was all the stupid Dirtlings fault!

  Patter stabbed the appropriate buttons on his private communications circuit.

  His communications screen brightened and then Hortense was on the display.

  “What?” asked Hortense abruptly.

  “Hortense!” said Patter cheerfully, “Great work on cleaning up that matter on Dirt. Did you get our extra incentive payment?”

  “Yes,” said Hortense.

  “Excellent. Excellent,” said Patter.

  Hortense stared at Patter waiting for more.

  As Patter saw Hortense reach forward to cut the connection, Patter quickly said, “Hortense! We have another clean up matter for you to attend to.”

  “Where?” asked Hortense succinctly.

  “Oh, back to Dirt again. A little more cleaning up is required,” Patter said dismissively.

  Rather than using another word, Hortense raised his eyebrow in enquiry.

  “Yes, yes,” said Patter, “As you would have seen, the planet Dirt’s orbit is littered with thousands and thousands of pieces of space junk - some of which you caused, by the way.”

  Hortense continued with his eyebrow raised. This seemed to him like a good word saving technique. He thought he might use it more in future.

  Patter responded to the disturbing raised eyebrow, “Yes. Way too much clutter. A definite navigation hazard. We need you to sweep it all away.” Patter waved his hands in a sweeping motion as if he were cleaning crumbs off the table.

  “MSPC,” said Hortense.

  “Yes,” said Patter, “Your Mobile Salvage Processing Centre would be great. Is it available? Will you be piloting it?”

  “No,” said Hortense.

  Patter was surprised, “No? Then who will pilot the MSPC? It needs someone we can trust to do an excellent job, you know.”

  By this, Patter meant do the job and not talk about it afterwards. If it was not Hortense, it needed to be someone he knew HTI could trust to be discrete.

  “Brother,” said Hortense.

  “Ah,” said Patter, repressing a shudder, “Is Navi available? He would be suitable. Can you do this as soon as you can?”

  “Yes,” said Hortense who immediately closed the connection.

  Hortense sighed and pressed his door opening button. His cabin door swooshed open and a brute of a rat man walked in. He had a similar look to Hortense but was over eight foot tall, broader and heavier than Hortense.

  “Navi, we have a job.” Hortense said, going back to his normal communications with his brother. The game of limiting words when talking with outsiders was taxing, but he was very good at limited communications. It also forced the other party to talk more.

  Navi stood next to Hortense and looked at the display in front of Hortense.

  Hortense said, “Go to Dirt. That’s where I cleared the local’s primitive space ship. Take the MSPC and scoop up all the debris in Dirt’s orbit. Nothing is to be left.”

  Navi nodded and grinned. Navi didn’t talk at all. He left that tricky stuff to his brother, the talkative one in the family.