“C’mon, Robin, please? The doc’ll never know. I never get any treats.” “Sorry, Jones,” Robin said to the dust-colored mutt in the steel and Plexiglas cell. “Please? Please please please?” Jones’s tail wagged the entire back end of his body. “No, Jones. Sorry.” “But it’s not fair. Those guys get fed late.” “They have bigger stomachs than you.” “Oh, please, just once, and I’ll never ask again!” But it was a lie; the whining would never stop, and giving in would make it worse. It turned out that a talking dog was even more endearing than the nontalking kind. It took all of Lieutenant Robin Green’s army training to turn away from the mutt and move on to the rest of her rounds. She hit a switch to illuminate a bank of lights in the second enclosure. The occupant had the thick, tawny-furred body of a lion, but its neck and head were those of an eagle: feathered, dark brown, with glaring eyes and a huge hooked bill. It opened its beak and called at her when the light came on, a sound somewhere between a screech and a roar.
