“I thought so,” he replied. “You told it we’d have it for supper and then it said, ‘You think you’ll do what?’ didn’t it?”

Barber’s face showed surprise. “How did you know that?”

“They’re telepathic between one another,” he said. “The yellow one there repeated what the one you spoke to heard you say and it repeated what the yellow one heard me say. It has to be telepathy between them.”

“Telepathy⁠—” Barber stared at the six little animals, who stared back with their fascinated curiosity undiminished. “But why should they want to repeat aloud what they receive telepathically?”

“I don’t know. Maybe at some stage in their evolution only part of them were telepaths and the telepaths broadcasted danger warnings to the others that way. So far as that goes, why does a parrot repeat what it hears?”