.
I placed first in my class, and most of the five hundred other
students were male. This is only a man's universe because the men
say so. What is the name of this garden planet where we are going?"

"Dis. I'll give you a briefing as soon as I get this ship on
course." He turned to the controls and Lea slipped out of her suit
and went into the lavatory to comb her hair. Brion closed his mouth,
aware suddenly it had been open for a long time. "Is that what you
call applied psychology?" he asked.

"Not really. She was going to go along with the job in the
end--since she did sign the contract even if she didn't read the
fine print--but not until she had exhausted her feelings. I just
shortened the process by switching her onto the male-superiority
hate. Most women who succeed in normally masculine fields have a
reflexive antipathy there; they have been hit on the head with it
so much."

He fed the course tape into the console and scowled. "But there was
a good chunk of truth in what I said. I wanted a young, fit and
highly qualified biologist from recruiting. I never thought they
would find a female one--and it's too late to send her back now.
Dis is no place for a woman."

"Why?" Brion asked, as Lea appeared in the doorway.

"Come inside, and I'll show you both," Ihjel said.

V

"Dis," Ihjel said, consulting a thick file, "third planet out from
its primary, Epsilon Eridani. The fourth planet is Nyjord--remember
that, because it is going to be very important. Dis is a place you
need a good reason to visit and no reason at all to leave. Too hot,
too dry; the temperature in the temperate zones rarely drops below
a hundred Fahrenheit. The planet is nothing but scorched rock and
burning sand. Most of the water is underground and normally
inaccessible. The surface water is all in the form of briny,
chemically saturated swamps--undrinkable without extensive
processing. All the facts and figures are here in the folder and
you can study them later. Right now I want you just to get the idea
that this planet is as loathsome and inhospitable as they come. So
are the people. This is a solido of a Disan."

Lea gasped at the three-dimensional representation on the screen.
Not at the physical aspects of the man; as a biologist trained in
the specialty of alien life she had seen a lot stranger sights.
It was the man's pose, the expression on his face--tensed to leap,
his lips drawn back to show all of this teeth.

"H