"They don't have much choice," Captain Feldman said, always the realist. "Why do homely women fight for jobs on the most isolated space outposts?"
Reiss grinned. "That's right. They look awful good after a year or two in space."
"Make that twenty-five by Zen standards or three thousand by ours," said Joe Hargraves, "and I'll bet they look beautiful to each other."
We decided to drop our investigation of Vesta for the time being, and come back to it after the honeymoon.
Six months later, when we returned, there were twelve hundred Zen on Vesta!
Captain Feldman was a realist but he was also a deeply moral man. He went to Yurt and said, "It's indecent! Couldn't the two of you control yourselves at least a little? Twelve hundred kids!"
"We were rather surprised ourselves," Yurt said complacently. "But this seems to be how Zen reproduce. Can you have only half a child?"
Naturally, Feld got the authorities to quarantine Vesta. Good God, the Zen could push us clear out of the Solar System in a couple of generations!
I don't think they would, but you can't take such chances, can you?
—JEROME BIXBY