“These aren’t birds, babygirl. We call them that because they’re sort of like birds. But real birds have feathers. And beaks—” “No bird I’ve ever seen.” Her mother took a deep breath and smiled through her exhalation. “When life comes up on a planet, evolution forces a bunch of choices. What kinds of proteins it’s going to use. How it’s going to pass information on from one generation to the next. Life on Earth made those decisions a long time ago, and so everything that comes from Earth has some things in common. The kinds of proteins we use. The ways we get chemical energy out of our foods.
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