He reached up and broke off a half-yard-long ear. He stripped away the protecting, stringy leaves. The soft grains underneath looked appetizing. They smelled like good fresh food. Calhoun offered the ear to Murgatroyd.
The little tormal took it in his paws and on the instant was eating it with gusto.
"If you keep it down, he didn't die of eating it," said Calhoun, frowning, "and if he ate it—which he did—he didn't die of starvation. Which he did."
He waited. Murgatroyd consumed every grain upon the oversized cob. His furry belly distended a little. Calhoun offered him a second ear. He set to work on that, too, with self-evident enjoyment.
"In all history," said Calhoun, "nobody's ever been able to poison one of you tormals because your digestive system has a qualitative-analysis unit in it that yells bloody murder if anything's likely to disagree with you. As a probability of tormal reaction, you'd have been nauseated before now if that stuff wasn't good to eat."
But Murgatroyd ate until he was distinctly pot-bellied. He left a few grains on the second ear with obvious regret. He put it down carefully on the ground. He shifted his left-hand whiskers with his paw and elaborately licked them clean. He did the same to the whiskers on the right-hand side of his mouth. He said comfortably:
"Chee!"
"Then that's that," Calhoun told him. "This man didn't die of starvation. I'm getting queasy!"
He had his lab kit in his shoulder-pack, of course. It was an absurdly small outfit, with almost microscopic instruments. But in Med Ship field work the techniques of microanalysis were standard. Distastefully, Calhoun took the tiny tissue-sample from which he could gather necessary information. Standing, he ran through the analytic process that seemed called for. When he finished, he buried the dead man as well as he could and started off in the direction of the city again. He scowled as he walked.
He journeyed for nearly half an hour before he spoke. Murgatroyd accompanied him on all fours, now, because of his heavy meal. After a mile and a half, Calhoun stopped and said grimly: