Someone tapped Steve's shoulder. Startled, he whirled around. A woman stood there, just behind him, staring at him insolently. She was tall, as tall as Steve himself, with her close-cropped blond hair peeking out around the edges of a black cap. She wore what looked to Steve like a glossy black Martian sand-cape which she let fall straight down behind her so that it almost brushed the floor. Under it, she wore a brief pair of shorts, also black, and a halter. She was muscular in that lithe, feminine way which had grown so popular in the twenty-second century--the century which had finally seen women come abreast of men in all sporting activities and surpass them in some which required special grace and lithe-limbed skill. "I hope you found whatever you're looking for," she said. She spoke with a complete lack of warmth which startled Steve for the second time in a few moments. She was a beautiful woman, he realized, but she looked so completely incongruous among the coveralled men that Steve found himself whistling softly. "I never expected to find a girl here," he admitted. "Not on this expedition." "What's the matter, are you old fashioned? This is the twenty-second century, the enlightened century, remember? There's nothing a girl can't do if she sets her mind to it. A recent survey shows that forty-percent of the homemakers in the U.S.N.A. are men, sixty percent women. Okay, it's only logical that some of the remaining forty percent of females have some tough jobs, too." "I read the books of the feminist movement," Steve assured her. "But it's going to take a lot to convince me of that. Me and a lot of other people, I suspect." "Is that so, Mr. Smart-guy? Are you a member of the expedition?" "Yes." "Well, anytime you want to hustle down to the gym with me and go a few rounds, let me know." "Are you serious?" "Of course I'm serious." "Well," Steve said, deciding to change the subject and feeling utterly ridiculous about the whole conversation, "let's forget it. I was looking for T. J. Moore." The woman smiled coldly. "That's me. I'm T. J. What do you want?" "I--uh--_what_? You're T. J.? You--a girl?" "Will you please hurry with whatever you want to tell me? I haven't got all day." "My name's Stedman." Steve felt his composure returning. The fact that T. J. Moore was a woman didn't make any difference. But unconsciously, Steve regarded her as a member of the weaker sex, and a large chunk of her fearsome reputation vanished because of it. "I wonder, if Mr. Carmical contacted you--" "He sure did, Stedman." "Good, then we can--" "Maybe you think it's good. I think it stinks. Listen, Stedman, maybe you think you can pull the wool over my eyes like you did over Brody Carmical--but you can't. He didn't recognize your name, I did. No kid brother of Charlie Stedman's going to make trouble for me because he thinks I was responsible for his brother's death." "I didn't say--"