ou're getting at," declared
Dollard.

* * * * *

He 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.

Shir K'han adjusted knobs and switches on the vehicle's control board,
until he had produced the desired setting. Then, he stepped back.

"As I said before," he declared "this vehicle will automatically
transport you to the leaders' banquet hall--to arrive in five minutes.
There, you will be prepared and presented