"Look at you," Threlkeld muttered, "and look at me--we're perhaps the
most unique imitation of humans the galaxy has ever produced."
Again there was a maddening silence ... maddening to Threlkeld. "My
daughter," he said at length, disturbed, "I must remind you of the
importance of this little mission. My entire career with the inter-star
patrol depends on how well we function."
Gelerie was bent in a heap near the tapering nose of the pod-shaped
vehicle as it hurtled past the lovely moon, headlong toward a giant
green and purple planet below them. Hurtled in a vessel with no manual
controls, a vessel grown in a government garden on another world ...
catapulted on a very special assignment to a planet that neither grew
missiles nor thought of launching them without myriads of mechanical
wires, dials and blinker lights.