Brion was lost. Ihjel had done all the navigating and Brion had no idea how to begin a search like this.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Lea said. “You don’t get rid of me that easily. I placed first in my class, and most of the five hundred other students were male. This is only a man’s universe because the men say so. What is the name of this garden planet where we are going?”

“Dis. I’ll give you a briefing as soon as I get this ship on course.” He turned to the controls and Lea slipped out of her suit and went into the lavatory to comb her hair. Brion closed his mouth, aware suddenly it had been open for a long time. “Is that what you call applied psychology?” he asked.

“Not really. She was going to go along with the job in the end—since she did sign the contract even if she didn’t read the fine print—but not until she had exhausted her feelings. I just shortened the process by switching her onto the male-superiority hate. Most women who succeed in normally masculine fields have a reflexive antipathy there; they have been hit on the head with it so much.”

He fed the course tape into the console and scowled. “But there was a good chunk of truth in what I said. I wanted a young, fit and highly qualified biologist from recruiting. I never thought they would find a female one—and it’s too late to send her back now. Dis is no place for a woman.”

“Why?” Brion asked, as Lea appeared in the doorway.

“Come inside, and I’ll show you both,” Ihjel said.

V

“Dis,” Ihjel said, consulting a thick file, “third planet out from its primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord—remember that, because it is going to be very important. Dis is a place you need a good reason to visit and no reason at all to leave.