"You've got plenty of photographic evidence?"
"All we'd need, sir, at least for the lewd, public indecent exposure charge."
"Wait a minute. How about the colonists? Got pictures of them?"
"The three men, sir. No others."
"Let's don't rush into this," Gunderson said slowly. "Without a ship they're not going to get far. Hold off, and keep taking pictures. Maybe we can get something stronger on Gray than just an indecent exposure, or at least get some pictures that could be interpreted as more than just that. Get pictures of as many colonists as possible, too, in case they've gone nudist."
"You'd want to prosecute the colonists, too?"
"Might be a smart idea. That way, nobody could claim we'd been gunning for the Junior E. Make it impartial, play no favorites. Hm-m, even if we decided not to prosecute, we'd have the pictures in their dossiers, so that anytime in the future, for the rest of their lives, if any of them gave us any trouble, we could quietly let them know what we've got, and they'll just fold up and quit. That's worked for hundreds of years, too."
"Yes, sir. Smart thinking, sir." The assistant knew that already Gunderson had adopted the idea as his own, and to hold his job he'd better let Gunderson go on thinking so. Of course, if the idea should backfire, then Gunderson would remember quickly enough where it had originated.
"Hm-m, you know," Gunderson was saying. "This could work out all right. If their ship's gone they're not communicating with E.H.Q. And if they're not communicating, E.H.Q. will send out another ship to see why. Maybe there'll be an E on it. I hear the only one available is McGinnis—that guy who's planning to fight us on that injunction.
"Now suppose he landed. Suppose he went nudist, or we could make pictures look like he did. The guy would have to undress sometime, take a bath. Slap a morals charge on him. Nobody with a public reputation ever fights a charge like that, guilty or innocent. They pay up or knuckle under to keep it quiet. Have, for hundreds of years; always will, as long as a bunch of fat, old, ugly biddies, male and female, who nobody wants that way are viciously resentful that they can't have what somebody else is enjoying. Young ones, too, so twisted and warped with frustrations they don't dare try what they daydream about. They're even worse. Yeah, a morals charge is the way to get at him."