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They ate with few words spoken. Just before finishing, Adam asked, “Launie, I noticed yesterday that the children and adults in the banquet hall were feasting on delicious steaks. Do your people still eat animals? Most of us on earth do, yes, but your Alpha an: tow a» Centaurians, do they?” She answered without looking at him. “Yes, Adam. We eat steaks and all else we desire, with pleasure and with gusto, but we waste nothing. To waste any essential is the same as destroying, the same as killing outright. Such things as waste are so remote from my people that only the most retarded of us ever speaks of them. As for the steaks—have you seen any animals thus far on board Andromeda?” she asked. “No. No, I haven't. That is strange, especially since you feed me eggs, milk, meat and other animal products. There is an unreality about it all. It makes me feel I am drifting in a lagoon halfway to. n - Vue od » Launie replied warmly and reassuringly. “We at home or on our base ships produce everything synthetically, as you would say. Does not what you have eaten taste even better than the natural foods of your earth? Furthermore, Adam, remember that all things are natural. Eventually the people of earth will duplicate much of nature’s own creations. It is merely a result of learning, 1 a» remember?” Adam nodded his head almost imperceptibly. No longer did this seem unreal, but all was alive, superb. “We do have animals on our home planet,” Launie continued, “but very few. Our people number twenty billion, so there is little room for animals. But ages ago, Adam, we also had a moon. Our ancestors finally landed upon it, and in time we gave it an atmosphere and cultivated it. It remains our satellite to this very day. We have made it into a small planet and transferred most of the animal creatures there. There are also a few million of our retarded ones, like myself and the others here on Andromeda, who make their home on that man-dressed planet. Even the 1 1 om 4 a 109 ADAM MEETS ANTARES between a Paradise and limbo.” animals evolve to final gentleness. i nn 1 Aa “One thing to remember, Adam, is that for every pound