"On further consideration, I realized it was a mistake. Despite my many years of racqueteering, loan sharking, weapons smuggling, and, yes, the occassional murder, I do have a small kernel of a conscience left. And potentially ruining an entire planet through gross corruption of its historical arc and exposure to off-planet disease is contained within that kernel.
"Well, no, genetic manipulation wouldn't be, clearly.
"But you know the Pan-stellar Conglomerate, it holds a grudge longer than most stars' lifetimes. And the Verma Laktima are even worse.
"So when the job got botched and I ended up running from the government and the mob, with a shipful of genetic freaks, this place was a godsend and I went to ground. Backwater, sure, but the people looked like me, all I needed was some clever cloth wrapped in the right places, and I was set.
"It was the freaks in the cargo hold that were the problem. Short fuckers with one leg and a big foot. Some people with their face in the middle of their chests. I don't know why the Verma wanted them. Wasn't my job to ask.
"We parked the ship in a valley in some mountains and headed out away from the sun. We needed a few things: food, water, uranium ore for the deuterium extractors. We were down there a little longer than planned.
"Three years. Ten of theirs. Just long enough for the damage to be really done.
"Well, uranium was hard to find. And I sort of got sidetracked.
"The first people I met were dark; dark like a god. There weren't many of them. They said, 'You are white. Are you a Christian?' At least that's what I remember them saying after I learned the language. I said I was. They didn't understand. They were frightened by the Freaks, so I sent them back to the ship.
"We stayed and eventually learned the language. We confirmed we were Christians. When they saw how ornately I was dressed, by their standards, they asked if I was a chieftain.
"What can I say? You don't give a con man an easy mark.
"So they started calling me Chief, or their word for it. They wanted my help and I gave them what I could, which was a lot considering their situation. Pretty soon I was their chief. A bit of diplomacy later, and I was a lot of people's chief.
"My ship became my castle. We built some stuff around it, made some of the rooms look pretty, and made some of the village leaders in to nobles.
"Some guys showed up, claimed they were Christian holy men, and I let them do their thing, playing along. Couldn't really tell if they were con men like me, but I'm not sure it really mattered to the people.
"The Freaks proved useful. Messengers, marks of my power, marks of my uniqueness, the usual.
"I tried the war thing. But it was mostly pointless. I won, made some divine signs of our coming victory with a plasma cannon, flashes of light in the sky and shooting stars and that sort of thing, and everybody was so sure we'd win that we did. It all came off pretty easy.
"Got some people digging for uranium ore. And by the time we'd got enough, I was bored. Nothing to do if you don't like war and the best they can offer you is gold.
"So we got the hell out. 'God calls me to his service elsewhere.' And we left.
"The Verma had changed leadership, we quietly settled our differences, turned over the Freaks, and I got back to work, hiding from the government as always. And that was the last I thought of it.
"Then, a few hundred years later, I'm out there smuggling medicine to colonies, and I realize I'm near this planet. So I sneak in and have an 'oh shit' moment.
"The white guys, the Christians, are going off to war en masse, because they've heard of some king in the east, a Christian named Prester John. I mean, Pratter Jian, Prester John, it's not too hard to figure out what they've heard.
"So I'm here. My guilt is pretty bad, otherwise I wouldn't be found within a hundred lightyears of a government office. But, you guys are the ones that can fix these things, right? How do you do that? Addition of civil knowledge to the planet and all that sort of thing? Well, I need to go. Good luck Mister Devinchee."