The robot shoved the plastic food tray under the cell door and went back down the corridor. Virginia turned away from the single window, where The Cat could be seen as a silhouette merging into the darkness.
"Last supper, Bob," she said. "Let's eat, drink, and be merry."
He went to the door to get the tray and noticed the three robots and two Tharnarian guards down the left hand stretch of corridor and the same number down the right. Virginia came up beside and said, "They're not taking any chances we won't be here in the morning, are they?"
"No," he said, picking up the tray. "None to speak of."
He carried the tray to the little table in the center of the room and Virginia seated herself across from him as she had done each meal for the past six months. But she toyed with the plastic spoon and did not begin to eat at once.
"I wonder why they made it a firing squad?" she asked. "You'd think they would have used something ultra-civilized and refined, such as some painless and flower-scented gas."
"Spies were executed with firing squads during the last Terran war, three hundred years ago," he said. He smiled thinly. "I suppose they consider us spies and want us to feel at home in the morning."
"I'm glad they do. I don't want it to be shut up in a room—I would rather be out under the open sky." She poked at the rim of her tray again. "They never did tell us why, Bob. They didn't tell us anything, only that they had no alternative. We didn't hurt any Tharnarians; we only destroyed one of their ships and some of their robots."
"We upset their sense of security and showed them they're not secure at all. I suppose they're afraid of an attack from Earth."
"They didn't tell us anything," she said again. "They act as though we were animals."