"Oh, they were cannibals?" the other Earthman asked, so respectfully that it was easy to deduce he was the subordinate of the two. "How horrible!"
"No, not at all," the other assured him. "They weren't human--another species entirely--so you could hardly call it cannibalism. In fact, it was quite all right from the ethical standpoint, but abstract moral considerations seemed less important to us than self-preservation just then. Decided that, in this case, it would be best to let the missionaries get first crack at them. Soften them up, you know."
"And the missionaries--did they soften them up, Cyril?"
"They softened up the missionaries, I believe." Cyril laughed. "Ah, well, it's all in the day's work."
"I hope these creatures are not man-eaters," Raoul commented, with a polite smile at Cyril and an apprehensive glance at the oncoming procession--_creatures indeed_! Skkiru thought, with a mental sniff. "We have come such a long and expensive way to study them that it would be indeed a pity if we also were forced to depart in haste. Especially since this is my first field trip and I would like to make good at it."
"Oh, you will, my boy, you will." Cyril clapped the younger man on the shoulder. "I have every confidence in your ability."
Either he was stupid, Skkiru thought, or he was lying, in spite of Bbulas' asseverations that untruth was unknown to Terrestrials--which had always seemed highly improbable, anyway. How could any intelligent life-form possibly stick to the truth all the time? It wasn't human; it wasn't even humanoid; it wasn't even polite.
"The natives certainly appear to be human enough," Raoul added, with an appreciative glance at the females, who had been selected for the processional honor with a view to reported Terrestrial tastes. "Some slight differences, of course--but, if two eyes are beautiful, three eyes can be fifty per cent lovelier, and chartreuse has always been my favorite color."
_If they stand out here in the cold much longer, they are going to turn bright yellow._ His own skin, Skkiru knew, had faded from its normal healthy emerald to a sickly celadon.
Cyril frowned and his companion's smile vanished, as if the contortion of his superior's face had activated a circuit somewhere. _Maybe the little one's a robot!_ However, it couldn't be--a robot would be better constructed and less interested in females than Raoul.