There wasn't any wolfing down. When you have been starving for weeks you just don't start off that way. You take a small bite and wait until you are sure it is safely down. Then you take another small bite and wait again. If you keep doing that you have a chance of holding what you eat.
They didn't mind. This food was not the kind you had to force yourself to chew on, like—some other things.
There were little animals looking something like rabbits, but tasting more like chicken, fried golden brown. There were oranges that tasted like nothing of Earth and apples that reminded you of paw-paws in fall. Seven different kinds of meat there were, and it seemed like a hundred different kinds of fruits and nuts and herbs. There was even a juice that proved mildly intoxicating. All a little different, but all delightfully, temptingly good!
"We'll be eating like this every day!" Flaunders said. "Maybe we can even set up a bar, with fruit-juice drinks and wine and even invent a new kind of beer. Big, foamy schooners of beer on Venus! Won't the work crew be surprised when they get here!"
They let it run away with them. It went to their heads. The warmth of intoxication, the feel of stomachs filling out. All the things long missing now returning in full force, all at one time. Almost it was too much. Almost death from excessive joy.
They went on and on like that, the most happy men ever. They wanted it to go on for ever, but the feast had started late and it ended late. After the two hours they felt like sleeping. In fact, they felt a more relentless urge to sleep than they ever had before.
The result of a full stomach, they supposed, or the aftermath of months of hardship let in by the sudden relaxation. It certainly wasn't a matter of choice. Who wanted to sleep at a time like this, a time for staying up all night and celebrating? But the sandman said no, and right now he had the advantage.
One by one they yawned, stretched and drifted off to bed like carefree children, and to hell with cleaning up. That could wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow! It was wonderful to have one to think about. Tomorrow was a golden day.
The last to turn in was Captain McBride, just as sleepy but not so carefree. He alone, perhaps, was not completely satisfied. Underneath the powerful urge to sleep was a question, and that question needed answering. Or did it? In one way it didn't really matter. He went in and found his bed in the darkness and decided to forget the question.