Rough Rider — Nina M. Osier

Nineteen years ago, Executive Officer Joy Grant of the Rough Rider became the first human to set foot on Zorti. Captain Kirk Rogers bent regulations (not a new thing for that only son of a wealthy and privileged family!) by taking his ship uninvited into a system that was already inhabited, and by making contact on his own authority. He broke another rule when he accepted the local Elders' invitation and went down to the surface to meet with them himself, recalling his exec to the ship after she had established communication with the telepathic Zortians. Rogers continued doing things his own way when the Elders asked that he spend the night among them ' and after that night, his officers never saw him again.Even the mind-to-mind intimacy of the friendship she formed with one of the Elderesses did not convince Lieutenant Grant that the Zortians were telling the truth, that Rogers died in his sleep and his hosts disposed of his body according to their own customs. Finally, though, the time came when she had to head the ship back to base or risk being unable to get there. So she left, and the Guard never allowed her to return.Until now ' when her role as the first human who ever touched a Zortian mind regains all of its forgotten significance.