For that matter, Betty Day inspired a lot of my ideas, ever since my
first opening day at Space Tech. The first task they put us to on the
opening day was to sit through a welcoming address from the President
of the Institute. Maybe it was a good speech if you happened to be a
kid fresh out of school, like most of the class, with your head full of
the ideas of romance and glory that the tridim space operas pump into
the cash customers, but when he began to talk about our "mission" and
being "pioneers of the new frontier" it got a little too thick for me.
I hadn't come to the Institute of Space Technology to look for glory.
I had come for the excellent if commonplace purpose of qualifying
for a well-paid job. My father's happy-go-lucky space-ratting was
not for me. I intended to do my planeteering with the resources of a
nice fat soulless corporation behind me. Four years in the Girdle of
Venus--which name, in case you are wondering, is a neat little piece of
irony--had left me very sane and practical and disenchanted about the
whole matter.