"There will be no more business as usual," David intoned.  "You asked what's going on, and I'll tell you.  My party has grown steadily in strength throughout this decade.  Tomorrow I'm making a major speech in which I will outline new quotas which, over a twenty-year period, are intended to phase out the consumption of animal flesh entirely.  It is insane, in this day and age, to continue a primitive, unhealthy practice which demeans us all.  Killing and eating our fellow creatures is nothing but cannibalism.  We can no longer allow it, and call ourselves civilized."

I was impressed.  He hadn't stumbled over a single word, which must have meant he'd written and memorized it.  We were getting a preview of tomorrow's big show.

"Shut up," Callie said.

"Countless scientific studies have proved that the eating of meat-"

"Shut up," Callie said again, not raising her voice, but putting something else into it that was a lot more powerful than shouting.  "You are on my land, and you will shut up, or I will personally boot your raggedy old ass all the way to the airlock and cycle you through it."

"You have no right to-"

Callie threw her beer in his face.  She just tossed it right through the fire, then threw the empty can over her shoulder into the darkness.  For a moment his face froze into an expression as blank as I've ever seen on a human; it made my skin crawl.  Then he relaxed back into his usual attitude, that of the wise old sage bemused by the squabbles of an imperfect world, looking down on it with god-like love.

A mouse peeked out of the weeds of his beard to see what all the commotion was about.  It sampled one of the beer droplets, found it good, and began imbibing at a rate it might regret in the morning.

"I've squatted out here beside this damn fire for over thirty hours," Callie said.  "I'm not complaining about that; it's a cost of doing business, and I'm used to it.  But I am a busy woman.  If you'd told me about this when we sat down, if you'd had the courtesy to do that, I could have kicked sand into the fire and told you I'd see you in court.  Because that's where we're going, and I'll have an injunction slapped on you before that beer can dry.  The Labor Relations Board will have something to say, too."  She spread her hands in an eloquent Italianate gesture.  "I guess we have nothing further to talk about."

"It's wrong," David said.  "It's also unhealthy, and . . ."

While he was groping for a word to describe a horror so huge, Callie jumped back in.

"Unhealthy, that's one I never could understand.  Brontosaurus meat is the healthiest single food product ever developed.  I ought to know; I helped build the genes back when both of us were young.  It's low in cholesterol, high in vitamins and minerals . . ."  She stopped, and looked curiously at David.