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This is waste of time. Also waste of my food.'
'I need to know if I can eat your food.'
'Eat your own food.'
'I've only got a few months of real food left. You have enough aboard your ship to feed a crew of twenty-three Eridians for years. Erid life and Earth life use the same proteins. Maybe I can eat your food.'
'Why you say "real food", question? What is non-real food, question?'
I checked the readout again. Why does Eridian food have so many heavy metals in it? 'Real food is food that tastes good. Food that's fun to eat.'
'You have not-fun food, question?'
'Yeah. Coma slurry. The ship fed it to me during the trip here. I have enough to last me almost four years.'
'Eat that.'
'It tastes bad.'
'Food experience not that important.'
'Hey,' I point at him. 'To humans, food experience is very important.'
'Humans strange.'
I point at the spectrometer readout screen. 'Why does Eridian food have thallium in it?'
'Healthy.'
'Thallium kills humans!'
'Then eat human food.'
'Ugh.
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