That lock opened, inside the glass-walled room. The plastic container appeared. The man leaped upon it. He gobbled its contents, and Calhoun was nauseated. But as the para gobbled, he glared at the two who—with Murgatroyd—watched him. He hated them with a ferocity which made veins stand out upon his temples and fury empurple his skin.
Calhoun felt that he'd gone white. He turned his eyes away and said squeamishly:
"I have never seen such a thing before."
"It is new, eh?" Said Dr. Lett in a strange sort of pride. "It is new! I ... even I!... have discovered something that the Med Service does not know!"
"I wouldn't say the Service doesn't know about similar things," said Calhoun slowly. "There are ... sometimes ... on a very small scale ... dozens or perhaps hundreds of victims ... there are sometimes similar irrational appetites. But on a planetary scale ... no. There has never been a ... an epidemic of this size."
He still looked sick and stricken. But he asked:
"What's the result of this ... appetite? What does it do to a para? What change in ... say ... his health takes place in a man after he becomes a para?"
"There is no change," said Dr. Lett blandly. "They are not sick and they do not die because they are paras. The condition itself is no more abnormal than ... than diabetes! Diabetics require insulin. Paras ... something else. But there is prejudice against what paras need! It is as if some men would rather die than use insulin and those who did use it became outcasts! I do not say what causes this condition. I do not object if the Minister for Health believes that jungle creatures creep out and ... make paras out of men." He watched Calhoun's expression. "Does your Med Service information agree with me?"
"No-o-o," said Calhoun. "I'm afraid it inclines to the idea of a monstrous cause, but it really isn't much like diabetes."
"But it is!" insisted Lett. "Everything digestible, no matter how unappetizing to a modern man, has been a part of the regular diet of some tribe of human savages! Even prehistoric Romans ate dormice cooked in honey! Why should the fact that a needed substance happens to be found in a scavenger...."