Regs

Survey Team Leader Nora Falconi was planning on a mission to the long isolated and technologically regressed human colony on Class M Planet No. 8055, but not under these circumstances! On reporting back to the Ishtar after a short absence, she is greeted by two pieces of unwelcome news. First, a long-awaited peace treaty with the ruthless Ast has just been announced with terms that will place 8055 inside Ast territory. Second, Nora's closest friend and long time team mate has decided to take one quick look at 8055 before that treaty takes effect-and he has disappeared on the planet's surface.

Using a cover story that makes her the wife of her missing team mate, anthropologist Marcus Cranshaw, Nora and Technical Specialist Rudy Tasker (playing the role of Nora's brother) go after Marc knowing that they probably won't make it back aboard ship before the Ishtar has to leave the sector. What Nora isn't planning on is getting stranded, perhaps for the rest of her life, in 8055's misogynistic culture when a ship firing from orbit destroys her shuttle.

Not that "the rest of her life" will be that long for a 46-year-old, on this world where post-childbearing women are disposable goods...