The Protector

A prizefighter and his manager travel to the fighter's home world, inhabited by a native people whose bodies do not register physical pain and who are mentally open to others' emotions. They discover off-world mining operations and a rise in careless injuries among native laborers, which prompts an investigation and moral unease. The fighter struggles between the comforts of his career and a sense of duty to his community, while the narrator documents cultural misunderstandings, commercial exploitation, and the ethical implications of altered sensation and telepathic empathy. The tale mixes boxing-world realism with speculative social critique about responsibility and cultural intrusion.