The Sage and the Exacting Dart

The people implored Grudge Sage Tudin to apply his prodigious knowledge of curses toward allaying their fright at the terrible beast. He was neither unwilling nor incapable.
"The cost however is inestimable," he told them as he explained the terrible armaments he had devised at their request. "Each of these darts makes its demand upon life itself if used, reducing by one the span of years . . ." There he swirled and pointed. "Of that man in particular."
"Such a sacrifice!"
"Why him and not the thrower?"
"We will support your family, sir! Be sure of that."
The whirl of relief and regret failed to rustle the indicated man. "Is this over the fence, Tudin? You didn't come up with this in a month."
"In any case," Tudin continued, "as grim as the matter is, we must ask my dear neighbor Iswar . . ."
"Pay me one dart of a like size in solid gold for each expended and I won't object," the victim declared. The people praised his sacrificing spirit. The monster, meanwhile, suffered what they hoped. It met its death rather sooner than one year per dart, or perhaps exactly as fast, since Tudin impelled several dozen of his cruel missiles, most of them after the thing lay still.
The people anticipated a lavish funeral for the richest man in the region at which they might compete to deliver the most moving eulogy, Grudge Sage Tudin most of all. They continued to anticipate it till the release of the scholarly tract I Discovered the Undying Secret and Here It Is: I Have Known It for Years but I Wanted to Work Out a Curse That Prevents Grudge Sage Tudin From Reading This Explanation Before I Published It by Eternity Sage Iswar.
Finis

Secrets of the Star Master

Rarely was a cargo transfer performed with such jollity. Even considering the extensive use of robotic assistance, the habit of the laborer is complaint. The special consideration which delighted those workers who were facilitating a transfer from the great drone freighter, half a mile long, to their own fleet was that none of those goods belonged to them according to any laws contemplated by an orderly government.
Greater than their good humor at the prospect of the customary piratical division of plunder was their dismay and confusion when their flagship abruptly disengaged, sending many tumbling through space, though not to an irretrievable distance. The consternation extended to the ship's bridge where entrepreneurs unaccustomed to deference demanded an explanation for the captain's intemperate behavior.
His explanation satisfied. "Our guys came through with a warning. The Star Master is already past the outer peepers."
The only objection to that dealt with referring to a person as "the" anything, and that was muttered so as to be heard by nobody but an adjacent officer who replied he had always believed the Star Master to be the ship, not the captain. Soon even the quietest speech died that was not relevant to ship operations.
After the missile exchanges, the electronic rakings and counter-sweeps, and the insulting impacts of DeMarten pellets which did more in alerting the recipients about the failures of their defenses than in damage, the pirates yielded to the notorious pirate hunter. Reduced to suffering from gratitude to their attacker for allowing them to live, the conquered struggled to preserve a pellet of pride by gaining information, trivial as it was.
"So which is Star Master? The ship or the man?"
The grand figure beyond the screen did not hesitate to answer. "It's no wonder you lost, if you think a distinction exists!"
Finis

The True Purpose of the Shield

That's where you keep your javelins.