Arcot and Morey awoke nearly three hours later, and the Earthmen ate their breakfast, much to Torlos' surprise.
"I can understand that you need far more food than we do," he commented, "but you only ate a few hours ago. It seems like a tremendous amount of food to me. How could you possibly grow enough in your cities?"
"So that's why they don't have any farms!" Fuller said.
"Our food is grown out on the plains outside the cities, where there is room," Arcot explained. "It's difficult, but we have machines to help us. We could never have developed the cone type of city you have, however, for we need huge huge quantities of food. If we were to seal ourselves inside our cities as your people have to protect themselves from enemies, we would starve to death very quickly."
"You know," Morey said, "I'll have to admit that Torlos' people are a higher type of creation than we are. Man, and all other animals on Earth, are parasites of the plant world. We're absolutely incapable of producing our own foods. We can't gather energy for ourselves. We're utterly dependent on plants.
"But these men aren't—at least not so much so. They at least generate their own muscular energy by extracting heat from the air they breathe. They combine all the best features of plants, reptiles, and mammals. I don't know where they'd be classified biologically!"
After the meal, they went to the control room and strapped themselves into the control seats. Arcot checked the fuel gauge.
"We have plenty of lead left," he said to Morey, "and Torlos has assured me that we will be able to get more on Nansal. I suggest we show him how the space control works, so that he can tell the Nansalian scientists about it from personal experience.
"In this sun's gravitational field, we'll lose a lot of power, but as long as it can be replaced, we're all right."
Turning to the Nansalian, Arcot pointed out towards the little spark of light that was Torlos' home planet. "Keep your eyes on that, Torlos. Watch it grow when we use our space control drive."