"Hold her here. Besides astronomy, which is all yours, what do we need most?"
"We should have enough to classify planets and inhabitants, so as to chart a space-trend if there is any. I'd say the most important ones would be geology, stratigraphy, paleontology, oceanography, xenology, anthropology, ethnology, vertebrate biology, botany, and at least some ecology."
"That's about the list I was afraid of. But there are only three of us. The fields you mention number much more."
"Each of you will have to be a lot of specialists in one, then. I'd say the best split would be planetology, xenology, and anthropology—each, of course, stretched all out of shape to cover dozens of related and non-related specialties."
"Good enough. Xenology, of course, is mine. Contacts, liaison, politics, correlation, and so on, as well as studying the non-human life forms—including as many lower animals and plants as possible. I'll make a stab at it. Now, Belle, since you're a Prime and Lola's an Operator, you get the next toughest job. Planetography."
"Why not?" Belle smiled and began to act as one of the party. "All I know about it is a hazy idea of what the word means, but I'll start studying as soon as we get squared away."
"Thanks. That leaves anthropology to you, Lola. Besides, that's your line, isn't it?"
"Yes. Sociological Anthropology. I have my M.S. in it, and am—was, I mean—working for my Ph.D. But as Jim said, it isn't only the one specialty. You want me, I take it, to cover humanoid races, too?"
"Check. You and Jim both, then, will know what you're doing, while Belle and I are trying to play ours by ear."
"Where do we draw the line between humanoid and non-human?"