A Suppliant in Space
by Robert Sheckley, Galaxy (November 1973), 42-61.
A slight novelette in terms of content (Sheckley takes aim at hidebound military bureaucracy), but couched in sufficient irreverence to make it worthwhile. The alien Detringer, thoroughly untroubled by his exile for ‘acts of incredible grossness’, typifies Sheckley’s casually transgressive, off-the-wall shadings.