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thought his friend and colleague would command a second vessel. Obviously it had been decided to put as much talent as possible on the initial survey.
    Looks was glad of the decision. Burden would be good company to share the great responsibility with. They had competed in study but never personally, had participated in multiple couplings together. Burden-carries-Far had jet-black fur except for white patches around his face and wrists. Members of the opposite sex found him especially attractive.
    â€œI wish I could go with you,” the Landing Supervisor was saying in an uncharacteristically soft voice, “but the initial survey is only a small part of landing preparation. The Sequencer must be made ready, not to mention her population. So I must remain here, though I will travel with you spiritually if not in person. I will know your work as well as you do, so see to it that you miss nothing and apply all your learning. I will be available to advise and to make the important decisions. You will have all the glory and none of the stress.” Both scouts executed their most deferential and apologetic gestures.
    â€œWe know nothing of actual conditions on Shiraz?” inquired Burden-carries-Far.
    â€œImpossible to tell from underspace. One prays for a world like Azel. You two will be among the first to know for certain. If Shiraz should be more like Mazna we will cope as best we can.”
    â€œWhat are your thoughts?” Looks-at-Charts asked his friend after the Supervisor had left them.
    Burden-carries-Far inhaled deeply. “I think we have not enough information about which to wonder, and that I am ready for a coupling.”
    Looks was more than ready to go along with that.
    They retired to a public assignation chamber for that purpose. Burden had chosen one decorated to resemble a Fifteenth Dynasty pleasure burrow. The effect was sybaritic, accomplished through skillful use of lights and artwork. Privacy coves were as abundant as the alveoli in a healthy Haghwick’s lung. Not that privacy was necessary for coupling, but occasionally one liked to try something that might not work. A failure in public could be embarrassing, while in private it was likely to be ignored.
    They encountered a pair of prowling computer technicians and after the formal, traditional exchange of greetings and commentary, plunged into a satisfactorily orgasmic quaternary that was better than anticipated because of everyone’s heightened sense of tension and expectation.
    When it was over and farewells had been executed, the two scouts left together. They joked about fighting to see who would be the first to actually set foot on the surface of Shiraz. Their competition was friendly and confined to words and gestures. Neither wanted to risk loss of face by initiating an actual combat dance. Looks-at-Charts tried several times to defer to his companion but the sly Burden would have none of it, knowing that if he accepted such offerings he would lose status.
    The battle might not be to see who first set foot on Shirazian soil but who could succeed on staying inside, in which case they might both lose out to some thoughtless botanist or crew member who’d trip and fall headfirst onto the soil of their new home. It was not an impossible scenario. He and Burden would have to talk this over between themselves lest in their desire to act appropriately and without loss of status they fail in their primary objectives.
    You could feel the heightened sense of anticipation everywhere. Everyone knew they were about to emerge from underspace. Everyone knew that Shiraz was, astronomically speaking, now little more than a falling branch away. Since Engineering and Navigation were the only sections fully engaged, the rest of the colonists were overflowing with nervous energy. Coupling proceeded at a frenzied rate, to the point where the Captain had to go on the Sequencer ’s communications network to call for restraint lest