'I can teach you lots of tricks,' she purred, and her mind rubbed his like a furry cat. 'You'll have to work hard, but you'll like it.' Andrew thinks it might be fun to have a tiny orange-coloured alien, complete with its own spaceship, for a pet - especially one that can teach him 'mind-over-matter' tricks. But Zidran isn't cruising around the galaxies for fun; she's an explorer for the Intergalactic Minerals Exploitation Company, and she has her own plans for Andrew and for planet Earth. This is a deft, humorous adventure story with an intriguing twist.