"He was just having his bit of fun," the first officer said with reproach. "Have you no tolerance, Captain, no appreciation of the joys of golden youth?"
"A spaceship is no place for a butterfly," Iversen said, "especially a four-foot butterfly."
"How can you say that?" Harkaway retorted. "The Herringbone is the only spaceship that ever had one, to my knowledge. And I think I can safely say our lives are all a bit brighter and better and m'poo'p for having a zkoort among us. Thanks be to the Divine Nonentity for—"
"Poor little butterfly," Dr. Smullyan declared sonorously, "living out his brief life span so far from the fresh air, the sunshine, the pretty flowers—"
"Oh, I don't know that it's as bad as all that," the first officer said. "He hangs around hydroponics a lot and he gets a daily ration of vitamins." Then he paled. "But that's right—a butterfly does live only a day, doesn't it?"
"It's different with a zkoort," Harkaway maintained stoutly, though he also, Iversen noted, lost his ruddy color. "After all, he isn't really a butterfly, merely an analogous life-form."
"My, my! In four weeks, you've mastered their entomology as well as their theology and language," Iversen jeered. "Is there no end to your accomplishments, Lieutenant?"
Harkaway's color came back twofold. "He's already been around half a thubb," he pointed out. "Over two weeks."