 What was the author's purpose on including a section about Hatcher's feedings?
Whatever it was, he had no business in it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jump from Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire? Item, a short time ago—subjectively it seemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank with nothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meeting one of the female passengers for coffee. Suppose you call him "Hatcher" (and suppose you call it a "him.") Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; but it did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher, like McCray, was an adventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciences of his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker and three-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy human description. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the "probe team" which had McCray under observation, and he was more than a little excited. Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure in which he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of all probes would be in permanent session. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: "The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began to inspect his enclosure.
 To further elaborate how different Hatcher and his kind are from a human.
 To give insight on Hatcher's personality.  To show that McCray will have to feed like Hatcher if he does not return to Jodrell Bank because there is no human food where he is.  To further elaborate how different Hatcher and his kind are from a human.  To show how grotesque his feeding process is.