“Duck, will I be attacked by operatives of the Checquy?” I asked. Its neck straightened abruptly, and it pecked the Y button on the keyboard. Its answer displayed on the monitor. Since my fate had already been predicted by, among others, a schoolboy, a homeless man, and a thirty-seven-hundred-year-old oracle, this wasn’t the greatest revelation in the world, but I was impressed with the duck’s rapid response.
