Max was the exception. He had no taste for military life or for the prospect of getting shot at. His father, Colonel Maxwell E. Collingwood, USAF (re… - Jack McDevitt

Most of my business comes from picking up the pieces when people get things wrong." She grinned. "I'll never lack for work.

The kids were both adolescents, at that happy stage where they could simultaneously make him confident about the future while they were sabotaging the present.

There’d been studies over the years supporting the proposition that groups composed exclusively of women usually made intelligent decisions, that exclusively male groups did a bit less well, and that mixed groups did most poorly of all, by a substantial margin. It appeared that, when women were present, testosterone got the upper hand and men took greater risks than they might otherwise. Correspondingly, women in the mixed group tended to revert to roles, becoming more passive, and going along with whatever misjudgment the males might perpetrate.