You can’t afford anthropomorphic biases when some of the aliens most like us would rather make human hamburgers than peace.

Next to her a calico cat puffed away at a hubble-bubble. Puss’s watch cost more than his vest, and his vest cost more than his boots, and his boots cost more than a house. If you stripped him naked and sold off his costume, you’d walk away with enough money to retire—though if you left him alive you wouldn’t have long to enjoy it. The only thing that could rival Puss’s vanity was his sadism.

The two old friends stood silently in the fading light, though you wouldn’t have known it to look at them. That they were old friends, I mean. Anyone could see it was getting dark.