Judy and Jane gave indignant gasps.
"Your attitude toward the indigenous life-forms is a most important factor." The captain looked fiercely at the girls. It was the women, he had found, who tended to cause most trouble in this area. "The Terrestrial Government does not wish to assume responsibility for any local fauna. All we want of Furbish is to check it, map it, and establish one small station here; is that clear?"
"Yessir," the survey team said.
"Very well, then, I—" The captain looked at the prefabricated structure of metal and plastic, tiny against the bleakness of the Furbishian landscape, and swallowed. They were brave kids to have volunteered to spend five of the best years of their lives on this barren little world, even if they were going to get paid a fabulous sum for so doing, and he was sorry he had ever thought harshly of any of them. "I—I trust you'll be comfortable. Good-bye, and good luck."
He shook hands all round; then blasted off in the little scout ship to join the parent vessel, which circled patiently overhead. One of the natives, plodding past with a sack half-full of vegetation, looked up incuriously, then continued to gather roots.
The two young couples stood outside their cottage, regarding the landscape. Short greyish-blue grass covered the barren plain and rolled up over the low hills some kilometers away. Stunted bushes, bowed down by the huge, bladderlike leaves the natives used as sacks were scattered sparsely about. There were no trees or flowers. Above, a dim, red sun hung in a cold, green sky. Although the post was nearly at the equator, the terrestrials felt chilly, even in their snug heat suits.