Captain Flandry's executive officer, Rovian of Ferra - larger than human, dark-furred, tailed, clawed, sabre-toothed, able to alternate between four-armed and quadrupedal, naked except for weapons and insignia, unambitious and amoral by human standards -, lodges in a rooming house for mostly non-human and unchoosy clients where he shares his grimy-windowed kennel with a contemplative, tentacled, hydrogen-oxide-exuding but personally decent rippling hulk. Flandry, visiting, must sit on the floor, smoke to counteract the headache-inducing rotten-egg gas and odor of decay and converse in Eriau instead of in Anglic in order not to be understood by the hulk.
I have compressed information about a Ferran and an (unknown) into a single sentence for brevity and amusement. We enjoy these colorful details in Poul Anderson's
The Rebel Worlds but do we fully appreciate their implications? Flandry, an Intelligence Officer, must be prepared to spend time surrounded by and interacting with non-humanoid intelligences in their environments. Sitting on the floor and getting a headache are probably only the half of it.
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