"In two hundred years of voyaging among the stars," he intoned to his fellow board members in a publicly holocast session, "we have discovered but a s...ngle world on which life comparable to our own proliferates. Not just life, intelligent life. And what have we done with that great and unique discovery? Nothing! We have allowed a single event—a tragic one, to be sure, but just one solitary event—to frighten us away from what is potentially by far the most rewarding return that our investment in. She was easy to talk to, andalthough she did not dress fully, because of circumstances at home, shewanted to and so our on-line relationship grew. We discussed all kindsof things and then had decided to meet socially, to make sure we got onand for my wife to meet and hopefully approve of Davina.This we had done a couple of weeks ago, the meeting went well and mywife gave me permission to arrange for Davina to visit our home, whichis in the middle of nowhere, in fact our nearest neighbours are. I had known Emma since we were at school as we were in the same year. Even back then she liked to receive male attention. I never came out of my shell until I was about 18. Emma never knew that I had a thing for her back then.The girls in the town never really had to make an effort to keep their bodies in shape or look after their appearance as the competition just wasn’t there. Any girl who wanted to have a relationship or just casual sex would always get it. By the time I had started dating. “Very nice work,” I commented at the décor as we walked through one of the rotundas to get to our quarters.“Yes, compared to how it looked, the infrastructure people have done a marvellous job,” Bonsarr replied as she also gazed around.“Thank you,” Taisha, who had joined us, replied. “A lot of it was designed by my people to fit in with the existing installations rather than start from scratch.”“I hope you handed out bonuses,” Bonsarr nodded in appreciation.“After the wedding we will,” Taisha.