Briggan fished three cans of food out of the back of the car and blasted them open with his dispersal ray. The can he handed Tchassen contained a fruit in a heavy, sickly sweet syrup. Tchassen made himself empty the tin. Tynia had a pinkish meat which she was totally unable to choke down. The civilized galaxy had been vegetarian for two thousand years; a clear indication of the savagery of the Earth culture was the fact that the natives still ate animal flesh. Briggan opened another can for Tynia. After a brief hesitation, he began to eat the meat himself.
Tynia gagged and looked away. "I don't see how you can do it, Sergeant."
"We may be on the road longer than we think," he answered. "We can't afford to waste anything; we aren't likely to find another food cache."
Tchassen glanced at Briggan suspiciously. It was possible that he could force himself to stomach the meat, if he were starving, but how was he able to eat it now? An Earthman could do it; yet if Briggan were a native, wasn't he too clever to give himself away with anything so trivial?
"Tell me, Captain," Briggan asked, "what chance do we have of getting through this alive?"
"We're armed; we have transportation; we—"
"And the natives will risk everything to stop us. They have to. This attack on the Nevada station was the beginning of the revolution. If they plan the rest of it as carefully, they stand a good chance of throwing us off the Earth."
"No!" Tynia cried. "Now that they know the civilized galaxy exists, they'll build space ships and come after us. With our weapons—"
"Plus their fanaticism," Tchassen put in, "the galaxy doesn't stand a chance."
"But we invaded the Earth to prevent that; we came here to teach them to live civilized lives."