David Mason

Pru'ut is a small hot planet, covered with fern forests and swamps, and inhabited by one of the innumerable primate-human species of the universe. It was also inhabited, for a while, by one Terran, James Grady. The natives called their world Pru'ut, Grady called it The Mud Hole. He was the sole human on the planet, and his job was to pay the natives to collect the native plants and have them picked up 3 times a year. The company turned them into an array of wonderful drugs for the rest of the inhabited systems. He loved the job and enjoyed the easy going native life style. The only problem was the bewildering array of native taboos and customs that he had to learn and abide by. Which he did very well until one day when he made a tiny little mistake. Really, it was small and inadvertent, but that did not keep it from being deadly.