[1] In the story, a being on a planet colonized by people from Earth is reformed as a female human, and has a relationship with a colonist which is more intense that expected.
The narrator is one of the indigenous people of a planet recently colonized by humans from Earth; they have one sex, one brain lobe, and they can change their form.
After "four days in the tank absorbing the female Terran pattern", and with a second brain lobe, he/she becomes Martha Dow, a botanist, and assistant to Dr. Arnold Proctor, the colony's head biologist.
The Warden and the narrator's uncle are addicted to sulfadiazole and expected her to bring back credits additional to her pay.
She finds that friends who have borrowed female patterns have not received a second brain lobe; she was given it, says the Warden, to make her more efficient.