 What crime has Zeckler committed to warrant imprisonment?
Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard down the slippery flagstones of the corridor, sniffing the dead, musty air with distaste. He drew his carefully tailored Terran-styled jacket closer about his shoulders, shivering as his eyes avoided the black, yawning cell-holes they were passing. There was a startled gasp from within, and a skinny, gnarled little man suddenly appeared in the guard's light, like a grotesque, twisted ghost out of the blackness. Why, I've been in here for years—" "Look, Zeckler, the name is Meyerhoff, and I'm not your pal," Meyerhoff snapped. Zeckler's face was dark with a week's beard, and his bloodshot eyes belied the cocky grin on his lips. I sent an appeal to the Terran Consulate the first day I was arrested. I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick them up. Zeckler stood up shakily. "You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can imagine, and they're going to get you for it if it's the last thing they do. I'm afraid, my friend, that your con-man days are over." Zeckler fished in the other man's pocket, extracted a cigarette, and lighted it with trembling fingers. The first men in were the richest out, and through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and underhand their methods. But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed inhabitants—warned specifically against the confidence tactics so frequently used—but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word. Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face a study in troubled concentration. "The simplest, tiredest, moldiest old racket that ever made a quick nickel. "If you hadn't been so greedy, you'd have found out what a chunk of land was to these natives before you started peddling it. You'd have found out that they're marsupials, and that two out of five of them get thrown out of their mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive.
 fraud
 embezzlement  fraud  encroachment  indecent exposure