A Zloor For Your Trouble!: A Wager No One Could Win

Napoleon Prescott makes his living catching animals no one else can handle, and he prides himself on finishing jobs cleanly and alive. When a sharply dressed contractor offers him easy money to bring back a harmless Martian creature, Nap senses a setup—but pride, cash, and a personal wager pull him off Earth and into trouble. Mars turns out to be full of professional hunters just like him, all stuck chasing the same uncatchable prize, all slowly realizing that brute force, advanced weapons, and clever traps don’t matter here. Every attempt fails for a reason no one wants to admit, and the longer Nap stays, the clearer it becomes that the creature isn’t dangerous because it attacks—it’s dangerous because it refuses to be moved.

What follows is a sharp, funny escalation where ego collides with physics, and cleverness is the only tool left. Mack Reynolds builds tension by stripping away every familiar advantage and forcing his hero to rethink what “capture” even means. The stakes aren’t just financial; they involve who gets to control discovery, who profits from obsession, and how easily smart people trap themselves with bad bets and worse assumptions. The final solution doesn’t arrive through force or technology, but through patience, observation, and a willingness to abandon the obvious approach.

Mack Reynolds was one of science fiction’s most prolific professionals, with work appearing regularly in Astounding Science Fiction, Galaxy, and If during the 1950s and 1960s. He wrote dozens of novels and hundreds of short stories, often blending social systems, economic pressures, and sharp humor into speculative settings. “A Zloor for Your Trouble!” showcases Reynolds at his most entertaining—fast-paced, character-driven, and quietly pointed—using a simple job gone wrong to expose how human arrogance travels just as easily as rockets.