“You’re a pack of dirty lying dogs!” Dr. Morees said when the helmet came off. Brion was completely baffled. Dr. Lea Morees had long dark hair, large eyes, and a delicately shaped mouth now taut with anger. Dr. Morees was a woman.

“Are you the filthy swine responsible for this atrocity?” Dr. Morees asked menacingly.

“In the control room,” Brion said quickly, knowing when cowardice was preferable to valour. “A man named Ihjel. There’s a lot of him to hate, you can have a good time doing it. I just joined up myself…” He was talking to her back as she stormed from the room. Brion hurried after her, not wanting to miss the first human spark of interest in the trip to date.

“Kidnapped! Lied to, and forced against my will! There is no court in the galaxy that won’t give you the maximum sentence, and I’ll scream with pleasure as they roll your fat body into solitary—”

“They shouldn’t have sent a woman,” Ihjel said, completely ignoring her words. “I asked for a highly qualified exobiologist for a difficult assignment. Someone young and tough enough to do field work under severe conditions. So the recruiting office sends me the smallest female they can find, one who’ll melt in the first ram.”

“I will not!” Lea shouted. “Female resiliency is a well-known fact, and I’m in far better condition than the average woman. Which has nothing to do with what I’m telling you. I was hired for a job in the university on Moller’s World and signed a contract to that effect. Then this bully of an agent tells me the contract has been changed—read subparagraph 189-C or some such nonsense—and I’ll be transhipping. He stuffed me into that suffocating basketball without a by-your-leave and they threw me overboard. If that is not a violation of personal privacy—”

“Cut a new course, Brion,” Ihjel broke in. “Find the nearest settled planet and head us there. We have to drop this woman and find a man for this job. We are going to what is undoubtedly the most interesting planet an exobiologist ever conceived of, but we need a man who can take orders and not faint when it gets too hot.”