"Why do they do it—the other way, I mean?" asked Dana.
Tennant shrugged. "I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose it's because they're pretty human."
"Human!" Dana was outraged. "Do you call it human to—"
"Hold on," he said. "They pass through their gateway to Earth at considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who don't—or can't—they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just laboratory specimens."
"Maybe," Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. "But the things they do—stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on display in their—their whatever they live in. You call that human, Rog?"
"Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?" Tennant asked quietly. "Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab? Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?"
"I was," said Olga. "But that's not the same thing."
"Of course not," he agreed. "In the one instance, we're the hunters, the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other"—he shrugged—"we're the trophies."
There was a long silence. They finished eating and then Dana stood up and said, "I'm going out on the lawn for a while." She unzipped her golden gown, stepped out of it to reveal a pair of tartan shorts that matched his, and a narrow halter.