"Oh, you didn't know? Food."
"Food? For what?"
"The Arpales and us, of course."
"What? You don't mean—you can't mean that they—and by your thought, you Arpalones, too—are cannibals!"
"Cannibals? Explain, please? Oh, eaters-of-our-own-species. Of course—certainly. Why not?"
"Why, self-respect ... common decency ... respect for one's fellow-man ... family ties...." Garlock was floundering; to be called upon to explain his ingrained antipathy to such a custom was new to his experience.
"You are silly. Worse, squeamish. Worst, supremely illogical." The Arpalone paused, then went on as though trying to educate a hopelessly illogical inferior, "While we do not kill Arpales purposely—except when they over-breed—why waste good meat as fertilizer? If a diet is wholesome, nutritious, well-balanced, and tasty, what shred of difference can it possibly make what its ingredients once were?"
"Well, I'll be damned." Garlock quit.
Belle agreed. "This whole deal makes me sick at the stomach and I think my face is turning green too. But I'm devilishly and gleefully glad, Clee, that I was here to hear somebody give you cards, spaces, and big casino and still beat the lights and liver out of you at your own game of cold-blooded logic!"
"We gunners must go now. Would you like to come along with us and see the end of this particular breeding-hole of sencors?"