One of the points I tried to hammer home in
Rome's Revolution was that the Vuduri don't socialize. When Rei first meets Rome and she takes him to her quarters, he sees two chairs, a little table and a sofa. In fact, this was the actual exchange:
“Why two chairs?” Rei asked. “You guys don’t socialize, you told me.”
“Occasionally, Estar and I meet here to perform some fusion of data-cubes,” Rome replied. “The task required that we be in close physical proximity. I would not call that socializing.”
Is this the real reason?
I don't know. I just made it up. It seemed stupid to me to have an apartment which consisted of a bed, a desk and a bathroom. It seemed like you need another area just to fill the room out. In the original long-form version of
Rome's Revolution, I had Rei fall asleep on the sofa he had in his quarters. Why would there be a sofa if the Vuduri never socialized? Rome's explanation sounds adequate if flimsy and nobody has ever complained about it but I think it is just a little inconsistent. Why would you go back to your room to work on datacubes? Why wouldn't you do it in a lab or the stellar observatory or whatever?
You will recall having three chairs in the galley of the Flying House was one of Estar's main concerns when she kidnapped Rome and Rei. A lot of mayhem and death resulted because of Estar's doggedness in trying to find out the answer.
Oh well, the Vuduri are inscrutable and having two chairs in Rome's apartment just makes for a better story. At least now you know the real reason. Sort of.
P.S. As I mentioned the other day, I got a nice shout-out from
Graeme Brown's Worlds of the Imagination. Thanks, Graeme.
Obviously, when the chairs were ordered, the Vuduri did not even think to order the exact amount. They just took two for each person.
Simple.