The Dragon Slayers

The story follows life on a colonized Venus where a Pretzin Division bureaucracy manages ordinary settlers. Division Chief Carl Wattles frets over a field agent's request for time off to build a house, while a married couple, Pole and Bliss Kenton, contend with predatory vacuum snakes and a fire-breathing dragon that destroys their cabin. The Chief responds by sending a mass-market fumigation canister promising to drive off lizards and snakes, exposing the comic mismatch between rigid administrative manuals and the chaotic, dangerous realities of frontier life. The tale satirizes officious procedure, domestic hardship, and ready-made technological fixes.