Jack Vance's "The Sub-Standard Sardines" (novelette, detective): Uplifted animals don't necessarily behave as uplifters wish

Karamor runs a sardine fishing & canning company with a partner - on a virgin water world called Chandaria with little native life. A partner who once offered to buy out his stake.

Now a batch of canned sardines has arrived from his factory to earth, but the batch is contaminated. And contamination could not have happened after the batch left the canning facility. Something fishy is going on at the factory.

He'll hire a detective, Magnus Ridolph, to figure out. And what an unusual setup he'll uncover!

Fact sheet.

First published: Startling Stories, January 1949.
Rating: A.
Related: Stories of Jack Vance.