e looked anxiously about him, but the flat plain bore no shelter—or for that matter, no other objects save the waiting air vehicle and the recently-landed space ship on the drome. Lights began to glow in the far-off city.
"The point is," said the feline interpreter, "that it would have made no difference to the primates had the mastodon been intelligent. They would have eaten him anyway. In your epoch, primates ate many domestic animals who differed less in intelligence quotient from them than differ civilized Tegurians from human primates like yourself ... the gap today is much greater...."
"Then, you—"
"Not me. Only the leaders of my world, shall I say. By virtue of their exalted rank, they have the right to the choicest of foods. Since the dawn of our history, the flesh of primates has been our greatest delicacy—but it has grown scarcer and scarcer, until now it is virtually non-existent. And such specimens, as are trapped, are stringy and barely edible."
Dollard looked down guiltily at his own plump body. His face bore the flushed expression of one suddenly conscious of sin.
"But you," continued Shir K'han, "your body is fat and well-preserved. When we found you on your derelict ship, our commander communicated with the rulers of Tegur immediately. He was ordered to change course and bring you to Bengul—"
The feline's speech broke off. Edwin Dollard had suddenly commenced to run from the horror of this alien world, recognition of his fate having burst like a rocket in his panic-stricken mind. His heart was pounding.
But loping easily along as his ancestors might have pursued a baboon or antelope, Shir K'han overtook the screaming human. He seized his obese bulk by the waist and lifted him high above his head. While Dollard kicked and moaned, the feline bore him back to the air vehicle and deposited him in a wire mesh cage in the flying craft's cockpit. A tangle of the sticky ropes descended from the cage's roof, further entangling the trapped industrialist and serving to reduce him to helplessness.