"They won't," said Peer. "Come on."
"How do you know?" Channok asked, following her.
"They can't bite through a good grade of steel-alloy. And they don't like its taste anyhow. Santis said so."
Well, it had been Santis this and Santis that for quite a while now! Peer's father seemed to be on record with a definite opinion on just about everything. And what made him think he knew what a ghoul liked to chew on?
Perhaps Channok couldn't be blamed too much. He was dog-tired and dirty and hungry. He'd killed his first two men that day, and not in fair fight either but with an assassin's sneak thrusts, from behind and by trickery; and he'd buried them, too. He'd seen the shining ISS disclose itself in action as something very tarnished and ugly, and a salvaged ship worth a fortune go up in a cloud of writhing grey smoke....
There had been a number of other things—close shaves that had felt too close, mostly.
At any rate, Channok stated, in flat unequivocal terms, that he didn't wish to hear anything else that Santis had said. Not ever!
"You're taking the wrong attitude," Peer informed him, frowning. "Santis is a very smart man. He could teach you a lot!"
"What makes you think I want to learn anything from a space-rat?" Channok inquired, exasperated.