Geoff Broman, a young scout-trainee with Gil Morrison's planet scouts, had been out to the planet Obsidian 3 times before, learning something of how planet scouts worked. What he had learned was there was always something new to learn: one couldn't predict all of what you might find as a scout-trainee. The senior scouts smiled when he objected to being almost continually surprised at what he learned. He guessed this fourth trip, would surprise him!