The Insects Like to Feed on Wolf Feces
The way the
old naturalist Edwin Morang explained it, the wolves, in turn, seasonally fed
on insect feces.
“However,”
he chuckled over his pewter stein of mead, “Not the same species of insect
which feeds on the wolf feces. That’s
significant,” he continued, “Because if it was,
then what we call the ‘cycle of life’ would be recapitulated in a narrowly
localized microcosm. As is,” he sighed,
swirling the last swallow’s worth of mead around preparatory to putting it
where it would do the most good, “It’s merely another example of bugs eating
shit.” He tipped the stein up over his
beard and downed its contents. As he did
so, Lucas was surprised to see that the bottom of the stein was transparent,
probably made of durable plexiglass.
Lucas, a younger man wearing a pullover bearing a stylized picture of a
poppy seed pod, pondered the possible reason for the difference in materials,
but his speculations led him to the wrong conclusion.
“Excuse me,
Mr. Morang,” Helena
interjected.
“Dr.
Morang,” Prosore the Kantiges Gesicht, sitting at the west end of the table,
corrected her.
“No,” the
old naturalist (who looked like Ben Kingsley in costume for his role in The Old Naturalist) shook his head in
dismissive deliberation.
The robot
later reported this as “deliberate dismissal.”
.
