“Isn’t he nice!” exclaimed Stella. “Sanya, catch him…
Drozd started toward the parrot, and then stopped. “He probably bites,” he said, looking reluctant. “Look at that beak.”
The parrot pushed off the floor and flapped its wings and flew, somehow ineptly, about the room. I watched it in astonishment. It looked very much like that other one of yesterday. An identical twin. Wall-to-wall parrots, I thought.
Drozd was parrying with his brush. “He’ll peck me yet, for all I know,” he said.
The parrot lighted on the laboratory balance beam, twitched a bit to attain equilibrium, and cried distinctly, “Proxima Centauri! R-Rubidium! R-Rubidium!”
Having delivered itself, it puffed out its feathers, drew in its head, and covered its eyes with a membrane. It seemed to be shivering. Stella quickly
