When Earth discovered a way to travel among the stars they were approached by the Mxtel and a trade and protective society, now known as the Confederated Sentient Peoples or CSP. To expeditiously travel between stars space ships need three engines, at the opening of our story the Lorili lost two of them, and both engineers as well. Mootoa is the only place they can get new engines and engineers. Earth does not know a lot about Mootoa. Mootoa doesn't think men are intelligent enough to do anything; they can't imagine a male ship's captain. The story is how the Lorili got some new engines and a new engineer, how she fits in with the crew of Earthers, and what the captain and crew think of her.