"Think my job's exciting?" he asked. "Skipper of an exploration ship.
Poking my nose into odd corners of the Galaxy. Seeing what's over the
hill."
"Of course," I said.
"Well, you'd be wrong ninety-nine times out of a hundred. It's just a
job. Most of it is checking--or did you know that only one sun in ten
has planets, and only one in ten thousand has a spectrum that will
support human life, and that only one in ten thousand planets has
Earthlike qualities? So you can imagine how we felt when we ran across
Lyrane." He grimaced wryly. "I had it on the log as Halsey's Planet for
nearly two weeks before we discovered it was inhabited." He shrugged.
"So the name was changed. Too bad. Always did want to have a planet
named after me. But I'll make it yet."
I clucked sympathetically. Capt. Halsey sighed, and this is what he
told me.