Rynason glanced across the table at Manning.  He was neither lean nor hungry, but he had that look in his eyes.  Rynason had been around the Edge for years—­his father had travelled the spacers in the commercial lines—­and he had seen that look on many men, in the fields and mines, in the spaceports, in the quickly-tarnished prefab towns that sprang up almost overnight when a planetfall was made.  He could recognize it on Manning despite the man’s casual, self-satisfied expression.

“You don’t have to worry about the colonists here,” Manning was saying to the girl.  “I’ll treat ’em decently.  There’ll be money to be made here, and I can make it without stepping on too many toes.”

Mara seemed amused.  “And what would happen if you had to step on them to make your money?  What if Hirlaj doesn’t turn out to have any natural resources worth exploiting—­a whole civilization has been here for thousands of years?  What if the colony here starts to falter, and the men move on?”

Manning frowned at her for a moment, then gave a grunting laugh.  “No chance of that.  It’s like Lee was just saying—­this planet is an important discovery—­we’ve got tame aliens here, intelligent horsefaces that you can lead around with a rope on their necks.  That alone will draw tourists.  Maybe well set up an official Restricted Ground, a sort of reservation.”

“A zoo, you mean,” Rynason interrupted.

Manning raised an amused eyebrow at him.  “A reservation, I said.  You know what reservations are like, Lee.”

Rynason glared at the heavier man, then subsided.  There was no point in getting into a fight over if’s and maybe’s; in the outworlds you learned quickly to confine your clashes to tangibles.  “Why did you want to see me?” he said.

“I want your preliminary report completed,” Manning said.  “I’ve got to have my complete report collated and transmitted within the week, if it’s to have any effect on the Council.  Most of the boys have got them in already; Breune and Larsborg have promised theirs within four days.  But you’re still holding me up.”

Rynason took a long swallow of his drink and put it down empty.  The noise and smell of the bar seemed to grow around him, washing over him.  It might have been the effects of the tarpaq in the drink, but he felt his stomach tighten and turn slightly when he thought of how Earth’s culture presented itself, warped itself, here on the frontier Edge.  Was this land of mercenary, slipshod rush really what had carried Earthmen to the stars?

“I don’t know if I’ll have much to report for at least a week,” he said shortly.

“Then give me a report on what you’ve got!” Manning snapped.  “If nothing else, turn in your transcripts and I’ll do the report myself; I can handle it.  What the hell do you mean, you won’t have much to report?”

“Larsborg said the same thing,” Mara interjected.

“Larsborg said he’d have his report ready in a couple of days anyway!”