"What would you do, if it were your job to decide policy?" Newhouse asked, genuinely curious.
"Just what the colonel's doing now," Pemberton said. "I realize it's the only sensible way. But there are times when I wish we could just walk in there, pull out our guns, and tell them to hand him over or else."
"Sure," said Newhouse, "but who'd raise gakgaks for us then? You want to raise a whole herd and milk 'em yourself?"
"My mother didn't raise her little Willie to be a herdsman for alien critters," the sergeant said virtuously. "Besides, I wouldn't know how, and I'm not anxious to learn. Those things smell worse than a herd of sick hogs."
"Same thing I'd say," Newhouse agreed. "But Earth would scream so loud they could be heard in Messier 31 if their only supply of anti-cancer serum were to be cut off, or even reduced. And if you know of any way to get it except from gakgak milk, a grateful galaxy will prostrate itself at your feet."
"I'd feel pretty silly if they did," said Pemberton, wrenching the wheel around to avoid another tree. "But it's a hell of a note that Dr. Chung had to find the stuff in gakgak milk at all. Why couldn't he have been sensible and found it in tree leaves or something? Then we wouldn't have to stay on good terms with a bunch of high-handed female dictators."
"No," said Newhouse, "probably not. But we'd probably have to stay on good terms with the savages around the base so they'd go out and gather leaves for us. What's the difference?"
"The difference," Pemberton said triumphantly, "is that we wouldn't have to worry about the care and feeding of our boy, di Vino."
"Um," said Newhouse, realizing when he'd been beaten.