He scowled his impatience. "What's their cultural stage?"
She favored him with a one-sided grin. "Some are foraging. A few are gregarious. You met one just now. Fortunately, I got here in time to save her life."
McManus's jaw dropped. "Save her life! You don't mean that crawly brute that tried to kill me just now?"
"If she threatened you," said the girl with careful enunciation such as she might use to a child, "it was because you had disturbed her peace."
"And it—she—was what you'd call a person?" demanded Pritchard, "Do you mean that you consider absolutely all the living, moving things here, people?"
The girl nodded firmly. Pritchard gazed at her, pawing his chin.
"Tell me," he murmured, "do they kill one another for fresh meat?"
She sighed. "They still do, but I'm trying to cure them of that. That's the work I'm doing. They only kill, after all, for food. I'm trying to cure them of the killing habit by getting them to switch to synthetabs. I've—"
The rest of her words were drowned in a tidal wave of laughter. The men exploded, beat each other, howled, and fell on the ground. She stared down at them, and her eyes began to smolder anew.
Pritchard fought his own face straight and wheeled on them. "Cut that out!" he yelled. "As you were!" They gurgled back at him, pleading their helplessness, hugging their sides. McManus gripped his cheeks and tried to squeeze his mouth straight, but strangled gusts still shook him.