WOMAN'S TOUCH
By EVELYN E. SMITH
illustrated by EMSH
The orders were to leave the natives of the new planet
strictly alone. But those surveyors' wives were women,
and women don't obey orders—or leave people alone!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Super-Science Fiction February 1957.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Now, don't get the idea that this is a universe-shaking assignment," Captain Harnick warned the four young people. "The planet's of no particular importance; otherwise we would never have assigned an untried team."
"Yessir," Ned McComb and Danny Field said dutifully. However, Harnick wasn't worried about them; it was the anticipatory gleam in their wives' eyes that he didn't like. Pity the men had to be allowed to take their spouses along, but the Extrasolar Survey Service would never be able to get anyone to accept a five-year term of duty on a remote planet without that accommodation. And, of course, he thought with sour complacence, at the end of the five years the men would be even sorrier than he was.
"True, it's an Earth-type planet, but only in the sense that it has an atmosphere we can breathe.... And, I repeat," he added, looking straight into Judy Field's snapping black eyes, "please remember that we have no intention of colonizing Furbish. It's much too far from the other inhabited systems for such a project to be economically sound."