"So, go take a look."
"But—"
"Hell, boy, don't let that Purcell put the fear of the unknown into you on your very first trip out. Huh, what do you say?"
"Yes, sir, Mr. Glaudot," Ensign Chandler replied.
"After all," Glaudot went on, "we have nothing to be afraid of. We're still within sight of the ship."
Chandler turned around. "I don't see it," he said.
"From the top of that rock you could."
"Think so?"
"Sure I do. Why don't you take a look if it will make you feel better?"
"All right," Chandler said, and smiled at his own temerity. But he knew vaguely that he'd been caught in a crossfire between the cautious Purcell and the bold, arrogant Glaudot. Sometimes he really thought that the Captain's caution made sense: on Wulcreston, he'd learned at the Academy, a whole Earth expedition had been slaughtered before contact because the natives mistook hand telescopes for weapons. And surely on any world a spacesuited man looked more like a monster than a man although he was vulnerable in a spacesuit, even more vulnerable than a naked man because he could only run awkwardly.