“No reason to coddle her neurosis,” said Snipe, looking around. His eye focused on a doorway at the end of the counter where they were standing. “Ah, there’s someplace I want to see. I hope this is more in keeping with the Legion tradition than the rest of the base.”
“That’s the officers’ lounge,” said Armstrong.
“Yes, of course,” said Snipe. “That’s why I wanted to see it. Or did you forget that I am also an officer?”
“Lieutenant, you hardly give me a chance to forget it,” said Armstrong, attempting a rare ironic sally.
Snipe ignored him and made a beeline for the lounge. But he stopped at the door with an astonished expression on his face. There on the couch sat Tusk-anini, seven feet tall with the face of a giant warthog and a thick book in his hands, taking up half the room. “What on earth are you doing here?” said Snipe after gaining his composure.
“Am reading Seven Types of Ambiguity,” said Tuskanini, peering truculently at Snipe. “Your-planet people never read twentieth-century Earth books?”
“Is this…sophont an officer?” Snipe turned to Armstrong and asked, quite unnecessarily.
“No,” said Armstrong. “We let Tusk-anini come in here to read when he’s not helping Mother. He’s the only one who uses the place much, late at night.”
“A very bad precedent,” said Snipe, peering at the Volton.
Tusk-anini peered back at him. “What you got against new critics?” he growled. “You deconstructionist?”
“I am an officer,” sputtered Snipe. “And you are not. “
“Noticing that already,” said Tusk-anini, closing the book but keeping his place with a large foredigit. He stood up, looming over the two lieutenants. “You making a point, or you just like a lot talking?”