next to nothing.

"Bill," said Cochrane fretfully, "I've just been given the dressing-down
of my life! You're expecting to get out of the airlock in the morning
and take a walk. But I've been talking to Earth. I've been given the
devil for landing on a strange planet without bringing along a
bacteriologist, an organic chemist, an ecologist, an epidemiologist, and
a complete laboratory to test everything with, before daring to take a
breath of outside air. I'm warned not to open a port!"

Holden said:

"You sound as if you'd been talking to a biologist with a reputation.
You ought to know better than that!"

Cochrane protested:

"I wanted to talk to somebody who knew more than I did! What could I do
but get a man with a reputation?"

Holden shook his head.

"We psychiatrists," he observed, "go around peeping under the corners of
rugs at what people try to hide from themselves. We have a worm's-eye
view of humanity. We know better than to throw a difficult problem at a
man with an established name! They're neurotic about their reputations.
Like Dabney, they get panicky at the idea of anybody catching them in a
mistake. No big name in medicine or biology would dare tell you that of
course it's all right for us to take a walk in the rather pretty
landscape outside."

"Then who will?" demanded Cochrane.

"We'll make what tests we can," said Holden comfortingly, "and decide
for ourselves. We can take a chance. We're only risking our lives!"

Babs brought Cochrane a plate. He put food in his mouth and chewed and
swallowed.

"They say we can't afford to breathe the local air at all until we know
its bacteriology; we can't touch anything until we test it as a possible
allergen; we can't."

Holden grunted.

"What would those same authorities have told your friend Columbus? On a
strange continent he'd be sure to find strange plants and strange
animals. He'd find strange races of men and he ought to find strange
diseases. They'd have warned him not to risk it. _They_ wouldn't!"

Cochrane ate with a sort of angry vigor. Then he snapped:

"If you want to know, we've got to land! We're sunk if we don't go
outside and move around! We'll spoil our story-line. This is the
greatest adventure-serial anybody on Earth ever tuned in to follow! If
we back down on exploration, our audience will be disgusted and
resentful and they'll take it out on our sponsors!"

Babs said softly, to Holden:

"That's my boss!"

Cochrane