"If the man is smart he can become a space officer, then when he retires at twenty-five, he can land a good job with the TA. He doesn't want anything to do with civilization. That five years has made him love space, love isolation. So, they are willing to take these jobs, to be put out to pasture on wayward planets until they die at thirty-five." It was said with all the bitterness of a condemned man. "What use would I have of your offers, even if they were true. When I finish, or rather, if I had finished my stay on Kligor, I'd only have a few months till I die. Your pleasant little cries of adventure, luxury, women, meant nothing. "I just wanted to be alone to die." Now it was the enemy agent's turn to speak bitterly. "Then you planned it all along. You led our men on, pretending you were going to aid us while you were in our midst learning everything about us to destroy us. "You finally found the method, God knows where you dug up that fiendish idea of sulphuric gas, but you planned and watched. I'll never know how you were so lucky--and it was pure luck, but you did it. You destroyed our base." With a smile, "Yes, I was lucky, I had a chance to end my life in a final battle and victory. That's all a man can ask for." Aron was still smiling when the blast of the Intelligence man's gun blew his head off. As he left the station, all the agent could think of was one phrase he had heard many times jokingly; but now it became a grim accompaniment for his footsteps. Though he didn't want to hear it, it kept whispering through his mind every few seconds. "Live fast, fight hard, die young--and have a radiation-rotted corpse." Two hours later the United Empire fleet landed on Kligor. They came to claim the sixty ships lying waiting--waiting--in the peaceful valley that was still tainted with the smell of chlorine. End of Project Gutenberg's For Every Man A Reason, by Patrick Wilkins