But, Lethe's waters could take the money. I'd take away the Statue's ship, and at least the principle of the instantaneous transmitter. That ought to be enough; resourceful creatures, we humans.

I felt Tim's presence steal over me; it was as if his hand crept into mine, reasserting our inseparability. I picked up what was left of the zap gun; it would make a great gift for him. Then I walked over fire-crisped slag to the pole.

The Statue, that Kafka cockroach, reminded me of me. I wondered uneasily if that brave prospector would have found me as repellent, as inhuman, as the creature who tried to rob her.

I knew that the quantum inseparability communicator became a key enabling technology for the expansion of mankind. It made the prospector her fortune, and her fame.

And the expansion continued.

"Watch," Eve said. "Learn..."

The Switch

The Switch

A.D. 5066

After the ship landed, Krupp and I made our reluctant way to the airlock. We found Ballantine already there, climbing into his neat little suit.

"Wouldn't you know it, Gorman," Krupp growled at me as he thrust his tree-trunk legs into silvered fabric. "That little bastard Ballantine always has to be first."

I searched for my helmet in a cluttered locker. "Well, it is his job, Krupp. He's the xenotechnologist... A landfall is the only time he gets to do anything useful around here."

Krupp pulled his gigantic shoulders straight. "Ask me, that creep doesn't ever do anything useful. Waste of a berth." Little Ballantine heard all that, of course. Krupp didn't care. Nor would you, I guess, if your biceps measured wider than the other guy's chest. But I thought I saw Ballantine's big-eyed face redden up just a little inside his helmet.

Captain Bayliss came stomping down the corridor. She was still rounding us all up for the EVA. Soon there were a dozen bodies, the entire crew, crammed into that airlock. Alien air whistled in and we grumbled quietly.

"Stow it!" Bayliss said irritably.

"Ah, Captain, these science stops are a waste of time," Krupp rumbled. "We're a cargo freighter, not a damn airy-fairy survey ship--"

"I said stow it," the Captain snapped. "Look, Krupp, you know the law. We're obliged to make these stops. Every time his instruments detect something like that wreck outside."

Well, we all knew who the "his" referred to. Ballantine kept his face turned to the door's scuffed metal; but his shoulders sloped a bit more.

On that ship we were all alike, all semi-skilled cargo hands. All except for Ballantine. He was the xenotechnologist the law said we had to carry.

So he wasn't exactly one of the guys.

But it wasn't his fault. I suppose we were a little hard on him -- Krupp maybe harder than most. Mind you, not so much that he deserved what he got...

The outer door slid upwards. We tumbled down the ship's ramp and spread out like an oil drop on water.