Same Old Van Rijn

"Territory," see here.

Van Rijn and Joyce are in an enclosed land-roving car with its own air, heat and food and thus are alive despite the hostile t'Kelan environment yet the "...detestable old oaf..." (p. 13) complains because emergency rations include neither beer nor caviar.

We know by now that:

complaining is part of his persona;

he will endure starvation rations if necessary (he did it on Diomedes);

if he had designed a vehicle for hostile extraterrestrial terrain, then it would have had enough storage space for beer and caviar.

They have already had one gun-fight with hostile natives but no one should think that Poul Anderson wrote only space opera. The t'Kelans are much more than just Wild West Indians with fur and tendrils.