The Risk Profession

In Short

Donald E. Westlake’s short story follows Ged Stanton, a weary claims investigator for Tangiers Mutual Insurance Corporation who despises low-gravity travel. Dispatched from Earth to an asteroid mining claim, Ged must determine why a deceased prospector named Jafe McCann apparently filed for a cash payout on his retirement policy two weeks after dying in an accident. What begins as a routine financial audit quickly devolves into a tense psychological duel across a barren rock, where stolen identities, financial greed, and a sealed suit reveal a killer who thought he had executed the perfect crime.

The Story

The narrative opens in Tangiers, where field investigator Ged Stanton reports to his jovial yet stern supervisor, Mister Henderson. Fresh off a successful case on the Moon, Ged hopes for a peaceful respite, but Henderson hands him an unusual case. Tangiers Mutual offers a specialized "Risk Profession Retirement Plan" designed for uninsurable off-planet laborers—such as asteroid prospectors—who rarely survive to age forty-five to collect benefits.

A longtime prospector named Jafe McCann recently died in an reported accident out in the Asteroid Belt, leaving his estate to his partner of fifteen years, Ab Karpin. Unexpectedly, two weeks after McCann’s reported death, the insurance firm received a signed cash-return form demanding seventy-five percent of McCann’s paid-up premiums. Oddly, handwriting experts confirm the signature is genuinely McCann’s written at his current age, yet McCann has no living heirs, and his body was allegedly lost to the void of space. To make matters more suspicious, McCann and Karpin had made a massive, life-changing rare-metal strike just twenty-four hours before McCann’s death.

Equipped with motion-sickness pills and heavy reluctance, Ged travels by interplanetary liner to Luna, then on to the dreary, olive-drab subterranean tunnels of Atronics City. After interviewing the local Mapping & Registry manager, Ged learns that McCann was the frugal financial mind of the partnership, while Karpin was the uneducated mineralogy expert.

Renting a clunky, unstable rocket scooter, Ged navigates through the Asteroid Belt to the partners’ claimed rock. He encounters Karpin living alone inside a cramped, sweltering inflatable dome. Karpin claims McCann punctured his suit during a drunken celebration and floated off into deep space due to weak surface gravity.

Instincts tell Ged that Karpin is lying. Ged explores the rock’s surface in his atmosphere suit, realizing that hiding a corpse on a valuable asteroid—or tossing it into space—would be too risky or impractical. Returning to the dome, Ged notices the minimum equipment carried by the prospectors. He suddenly realizes that two atmosphere suits lie on the floor, even though one man is supposedly lost in space. Ged confronts the survivor: the living man is actually Jafe McCann, who murdered the real Ab Karpin. McCann swapped identities to escape his mountain of personal debts, filed the cash-return form to steal his own policy money, and stashed Karpin's corpse inside the second sealed space suit until he could afford a disposal rocket.

Exposed, McCann breaks down in terror when Ged moves to unseal the suit. Ged brings McCann and the evidence back to Atronics City. Before returning to Tangiers, Ged registers the unclaimed, ultra-valuable asteroid under his own name and sells it to a corporation. Arriving back at headquarters, Ged triumphantly confronts Henderson, quits his job on the spot, and retires comfortably on his newfound fortune.

How It Unfolds

A new assignment Ged Stanton returns to headquarters in Tangiers and receives an assignment from his boss to investigate a suspicious $10,000 cash-return claim. The claim was submitted under the name of a dead asteroid prospector, Jafe McCann, shortly after he and his partner struck it rich.

Journey to the Belt Slogging through severe motion sickness, Ged travels via the liner Demeter to the oppressive, boxy habitat of Atronics City. He interviews the local registry manager to learn the background of the two prospectors and their unusual fifteen-year partnership.

Confronting the survivor Ged pilots a rickety rental scooter across the Asteroid Belt to reach the remote claim site. Inside a sweltering inflatable dome, he meets the surviving partner, who holds him at gunpoint before offering a smooth story about a tragic space-suit accident.

Searching the rock Doubting the prospector’s story, Ged puts on his atmosphere suit and inspects the metallic terrain outside. He realizes a body could not be buried in solid rock, nor would a killer risk leaving evidence on a valuable mining site.

Deduction in the dome Ged observes the minimal gear inside the cramped shelter and realizes the survivor made a critical mistake by being overly greedy. He calculates that the living man has stolen his dead partner's identity to evade debt and claim extra cash.

Uncovering the evidence Ged looks directly at the second atmosphere suit lying on the floor, realizing it serves as a sealed container hiding the victim's remains. The killer panics and confesses, allowing Ged to take him into custody.

A permanent vacation After turning the murderer over to space authorities, Ged legally registers the rich asteroid claim for himself and sells it. He returns to Earth only to inform his stunned boss that he is quitting the insurance business forever.

The People

• Ged Stanton: A roving claims investigator for Tangiers Mutual who prefers plain living and low-effort desk work over deep-space travel. Highly susceptible to gravity sickness, he relies on eight years of investigator instincts and sharp observation to catch corporate fraudsters and earn his ultimate freedom.
• Mister Henderson: Ged’s jovial yet stern boss at Tangiers Mutual’s Earth headquarters. Round-faced and tiny-eyed, he is a dedicated corporate loyalist focused on saving the insurance firm money at all costs.
• Jafe McCann: A sharp, penny-pinching prospector who handled the business end of a long-term partnership. Driven by extreme greed, he murders his partner, steals his identity to escape heavy debts, and tries to defraud his own retirement policy.
• Ab Karpin: A quiet, grizzled prospector known across the Belt for his unmatched mineralogy expertise. Though brilliant at identifying valuable ores, his trust in his longtime partner ultimately leads to his silent demise.

In Its Own Voice

"Roving claims investigators for Tangiers Mutual Insurance Corporation don't usually get to spend more than thirty-six consecutive hours at home base."

Ged Stanton explains the relentless schedule of his corporate job while preparing for another unwanted off-planet trip.

"A man who's spent the last twenty or thirty years on low-gee asteroids just shrivels up after a while when he tries to live on Earth."

The narrator outlines the physical toll of deep-space mining that makes retirement policies a lucrative scam for insurance companies.

"A body can rot away to ashes inside a space suit, and you'll never notice a thing on the outside."

Ged deduces the gruesome method used by the killer to store his victim's remains in plain sight.

What It's Really About

Underneath its outer-space mystery framework, the narrative critiques corporate greed and systemic exploitation. Tangiers Mutual designs insurance policies tailored for "uninsurables"—laborers working in deadly conditions—specifically banking on actuarial odds that policyholders will die before collecting benefits. The story contrasts institutional greed with individual desperation, showing how the isolated, harsh environment of the Asteroid Belt corrodes human trust. McCann's downfall stems not from a failure of his murder plan, but from an irrepressible need to squeeze every last penny out of a corrupt financial system.

Why Read It Today

Readers who enjoy classic, fast-paced science fiction mysteries with dry humor and sharp deductions will find this story exceptionally satisfying. Donald E. Westlake brings his signature crime-fiction craftsmanship to a retro-futuristic setting, replacing grand space-opera tropes with gritty, claustrophobic realism—such as drafty rocket scooters, miserable gravity sickness, and sweltering inflatable habitats.

The story moves briskly without bogged-down prose, though modern readers should expect mid-twentieth-century sci-fi conventions, such as physical mail delivery in space and exaggerated low-gravity physics. What endures is the narrator's cynical, working-class perspective and the clever, logic-driven resolution. It offers a quick, entertaining read that leaves a lasting impression of how human cynicism and financial scheming remain unchanged, no matter how far into the stars humanity travels.