He kicked Brute in the face. The dog squirmed joyously at his feet.
"Look," Joggy said, "you wouldn't hurt an uninj, for instance, would you?"
"How can you hurt something that's uninjurable?" the Butcher demanded scathingly. "An uninj isn't really a dog. It's just a lot of circuits and a micropack bedded in hyperplastic." He looked at Brute with guarded wistfulness.
"I don't know about that," Hal put in. "I've heard an uninj is programmed with so many genuine canine reactions that it practically has racial memory."
"I mean if you could hurt an uninj," Joggy amended.
"Well, maybe I wouldn't," the Butcher admitted grudgingly. "But shut up—I want to think."
"About what?" Hal asked with saintly reasonableness.
The Butcher achieved a fearful frown. "When I'm World Director," he said slowly, "I'm going to have warfare again."
"You think so now," Hal told him. "We all do at your age."
"We do not," the Butcher retorted. "I bet you didn't."