He shoved the paper across the desk. Ensign Welnicki looked at it stupidly. His inner song was muted.
"Sgt. Chong will stay to command the temporary base force," the captain was saying. "Within a year you may expect a Patrol construction fleet to open your communications and start work on the base. Your pay accounts can be settled then. There! Sign it!"
Ensign Welnicki bent and signed. The captain looked at the paper and handed it back.
"Use your right name," he said.
Ensign Welnicki looked blank.
"Stephen Fishdollar!" the captain roared.
The ensign looked blanker still.
"Ensign Fishdollar, some day you really must read through the legal codes of your adopted planet," the captain said mock-earnestly. "One of the changes made by the Fishdollars in the Sigma-3 Velorum codes was to make marriage and descent matrilineal. That way their name escapes Rho-death."
Ensign Fishdollar sagged. His inner song faded to a whisper.
"Very, very clever of the Fishdollars," the captain said musingly. "To link their name with the X-chromosome rather than with the Y. So it becomes as low-Rho as it was high before. Very clever indeed.