Talk again lapsed, and Chet became uncomfortable. "The corpsman said you wanted to ask me some things," he said. And added, "You've already questioned me, haven't you?"
"Only a little," Dr. Pine said, flexing his long fingers and looking down at them. "We—ah—we had to find out about your shipmates. Commander Seymour wanted to look for them, naturally...."
Naturally.... "Are we going to leave here now, sir?" Chet asked the commander.
"Not yet," he said. "Dr. Pine has a job to do."
"What's that, Doctor?"
"I'm going to study your Agvar friends, Mr. Barfield. Want to help?"
"Sure," Chet said. "There's nothing I'd rather do than bring you a few corpses to dissect."
"That—ah—that isn't the idea," Dr. Pine said, bending his fingers and rocking from toes to heels. "I—ah—I want to do a little anthropology—study them in the life...."
"Why?" Chet demanded. "I can tell you all about them. I can tell you what they did to me, too! They don't deserve to live! And this planet won't be safe for spacemen till they're dead. Why waste time studying them? It isn't as if you were a professional anthropologist, sir—didn't you give me medical care?"