y.

"Thirty-nine, twenty-two, thirty-five. Five seven. One thirty-five. If
any of it's any of your business, which it isn't. You should be
discussing brains and ability, not vital statistics."

"Brains? You? No, I'll take that back. As a Prime, you _have_ got a
brain--one that really works. What do _you_ think you're good for on
this project? What can you do?"

"I can do anything any man ever born can do, and do it better!"

"Okay. Compute a Gunther field that will put us two hundred thousand
feet directly above the peak of that mountain."

"That isn't fair--not that I expected fairness from you--and you know
it. That doesn't take either brains or ability...."

"Oh, no?"

"No. Merely highly specialized training that you know I haven't had.
Give me a five-tape course on it and I'll come closer than either you or
James; for a hundred credits a shot."

"I'll do just that. Something you _are_ supposed to know, then. How
would you go about making first contact?"

* * *

"Well, I wouldn't do it the way _you_ would--by knocking down the first
native I saw, putting my foot on his face, and yelling 'Bow down, you
stupid, ignorant beasts, and worship me, the Supreme God of the
Macrocosmic Universe'!"

"Try again, Belle, that one missed me by...."

"Hold it, both of you!" James broke in. "What the hell are you trying to
prove? How about cutting out this cat-and-dog act and getting some work
done?"

"You've got a point there," Garlock admitted, holding his temper by a
visible effort. "Sorry, Jim. Belle, what were you briefed for?"

"To understudy you." She, too, fought her temper down. "To learn
everything about Project Gunther. I have a whole box of tapes in my
room, including advanced Gunther math and first-contact techniques. I'm
to study them during all my on-watch time unless you assign other
duties."

"No matter what your duties may be, you'll have to have time to study.
If you don't find what you want in your own tapes--and you probably
won't, since Ferber and his Miss Foster ran the selections--use our
library. It's good--designed to carry on our civilization. Miss
Montandon? No, that's silly, the way we're fixed. Lola?"

"I'm to learn how to be Doctor James'...."

"Jim, please, Lola," James said. "And call him Clee."

"I'd like that." She smiled winningly. "And my friends call me
'Brownie'."

"I see why they would. It fits like a coat of lacquer."

*