"You've been there quite a bit," said Hammond. "How's conditions?"
"Pretty good. Air is O.K., though slightly pungent in smell. The people are very much like humans, though they have their big differences which take them out of the human class."
"For instance?"
"Well, they are all covered with a funny kind of hair. It's a sort of half-hair, half-feathers kind of stuff. It's as soft as a baby's scalp and on a dog or something like that it would be beautiful. I'd like a coat made of it, frankly."
"I'll bet they appreciate your offer to wear one of 'em for a winter coat," said Hammond dryly. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, Drake?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that," said Sandra. "After all, I was merely trying to explain the beauty of their skin."
"You gave yourself away," said Steve Hammond. "Like as usual, Sandra Drake thinks of everything in accordance with how it will couple to her, or her name, or her reputation."
"Now, you're being hard," complained Sandra. "Give me a break, Steve. You shouldn't take issue with me for a statement of that kind. After all, it was just a sort of slip of the tongue. I'm not really thinking of skinning one of them for my coat."
"If I were you," put in McBride, "I'd think hard of one other thing that might be closer to home. D'jever think that you are in no position to do any skin collecting? The odds are agin' it. But, Sister Drake, those birds are! You might enhance the beauty of one of their females some day. How would the pelt of Sandra Drake look on the living room floor, nine light-years from Terra? Take it clean and easy, Drake, or you might not get back to Terra with that satiny, soft, practically flawless hide of yours intact."
"What do you mean, 'practically flawless'?" snapped Sandra.