Baker's Dozens

A notorious space pirate uses raids to sabotage missionary textbooks he believes corrupt alien cultures while intelligence agencies compile conflicting reports of his deaths and a xenologist tries to reconcile them. He stages a daring escape, acquires crude jump technology from grateful natives, and later pursues a teleportation inventor whose device unexpectedly duplicates him. The duplication triggers violence and a swift, rough justice on a frontier mining world, leaving outcomes uncertain as authorities and local populations judge his motives. The story blends moral ambivalence about cultural intervention with speculative gadgets and unintended consequences.