Tannat

24th-century guy is at it again:

“They’re nice people, when you get to know them. Really.”
“But they have rituals and dances,” said Bugleg in distaste. “And they catch animals and kill them.” His eyes widened as a horrid thought occurred to him. “A feast is where they catch an animal and cook it on a big fire, isn’t it? Are they going to do that?”
Lopez and I looked at each other.
“Well, only an animal that’s already dead, sir,” Lopez told him at last. “It’s not as though it’s being hurt in any way.”

“But there’ll be—bones, and muscles, and …” Bugleg’s face was going pale, either with the slaughterhouse mental pictures he must have been forming or with the effort of forming them, it was hard to say which.
“It’s true, sir, meat in its natural state does have bones in it,” I agreed. “But the natives are okay with that, and so are we. We’re used to it, remember.”
“But I’m not!” He clenched the edge of the table. “This is gross. And I just thought of something! You’re all, ‘Only dead animals will be cooked,’ but that still means somebody will kill the animals, doesn’t it? And you can’t do that! You can’t have rituals and … and all that other stuff! I won’t sign permission. It’s too nasty and scary.”

I keep waiting for things to go horribly, horribly wrong.