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it no longer mattered, because Claribel was a general pet. He had smuggled her up on the last ferry from Earth, when he came back from leave — partly, he claimed, out of sheer scientific curiosity. He wanted to see just how a bird would operate when it had no weight but could still use its wings.


Claribel thrived and grew fat. On the whole, we had little trouble concealing our unauthorized guest when VIP’s from Earth came visiting. A space station has more hiding places than you can count; the only problem was that Claribel got rather noisy when she was upset, and we sometimes had to think fast to explain the curious peeps and whistles that came from ventilating shafts and storage bulkheads. There were a couple of narrow escapes — but then who would dream of looking for a canary in a space station?


We were now on twelve-hour watches, which was not as bad as it sounds, since you need little sleep in space. Though of course there is no “day” and “night” when you are floating in permanent sunlight, it was still convenient to stick to the terms. Certainly when I woke that “morning” it felt like 6:00 a.m. on Earth. I had a nagging headache, and vague memories of fitful, disturbed dreams. It took me ages to undo my bunk straps, and I was still only half awake when I joined the remainder of the duty crew in the mess. Breakfast was unusually quiet, and there was one seat vacant.


“Where’s Sven?” I asked, not very much caring.


“He’s looking for Claribel,” someone answered. “Says he can’t find her anywhere. She usually wakes him up.”


Before I could retort that she usually woke me up, too, Sven came in through the doorway, and we could see at once that something was wrong. He slowly opened his hand, and there lay a tiny bundle of yellow feathers, with two clenched claws sticking pathetically up into the air.


“What happened?” we asked, all equally distressed.


“I don’t know,” said Sven mournfully. “I just found her like this.”


“Let’s have a look at her,” said Jock Duncan, our cook-doctor-dietitian. We all waited in hushed silence while he held Claribel against his ear in an attempt to detect any heartbeat.


Presently he shook his head. “I can’t hear anything, but that doesn’t prove she’s dead. I’ve never listened to a canary’s heart,” he added rather apologetically.


“Give her a shot of oxygen,” suggested somebody, pointing to the green-banded emergency cylinder in its recess beside the door. Everyone agreed that this was an excellent idea, and Claribel was tucked snugly into a face mask that was large enough to serve as a complete oxygen tent for her.


To our delighted surprise, she revived at once. Beaming broadly, Sven removed the mask, and she hopped onto his fingers. She gave her series of “Come to the cookhouse, boys” trills — then promptly keeled over again.


“I don’t get it,” lamented Sven. “What’s wrong with her? She’s never done this before.”


For the last few minutes, something had been tugging at my memory. My mind seemed to be very sluggish that morning, as if I was still unable to cast off the burden of sleep. I felt that I could do with some of that oxygen — but before I could reach the mask, understanding exploded in my brain. I whirled on the duty engineer and said urgently:


“Jim! There’s something wrong with the air! That’s why Claribel’s passed out. I’ve just remembered that miners used to carry canaries down to warn them of gas.”


“Nonsense!” said Jim. “The alarms would have gone off. We’ve got duplicate circuits, operating independently.”


“Er — the second alarm circuit isn’t connected up yet,” his assistant reminded him. That shook Jim; he left without a word, while we stood arguing and passing the oxygen bottle around like a pipe of peace.


He came back ten minutes later with a sheepish expression. It was one of those accidents that couldn’t possibly happen; we’d had one of our rare eclipses by Earth’s shadow that night; part of the air purifier had frozen up, and the single alarm in the circuit had failed to go off. Half a million dollars’ worth of chemical and electronic engineering had let us down completely. Without Claribel, we should soon have been slightly dead.


So now, if you visit any space station, don’t be surprised if you hear an inexplicable snatch of birdsong. There’s no need to be alarmed: on the contrary, in fact. It will mean that you’re being doubly safeguarded, at practically no extra expense.


"Feathered Friend" by Sir Arthur C. Clarke, from The Other Side of the Sky. Copyright ©1957. Used with permission. All rights reserved.

Answer 1

Thanks — that’s Sir Arthur C. Clarke’s short piece “Feathered Friend.” Do you want me to do something with it? Here are some things I can provide right away — tell me which you want (or request something else):

- Short summary (1–3 sentences)
- Detailed plot summary / scene-by-scene breakdown
- Themes and interpretation (safety, redundancy, human fallibility, humor)
- Literary analysis (tone, structure, irony, characterization)
- Discussion questions for a book group or class
- Reading-comprehension quiz (multiple choice and short answer)
- Lesson plan or activities for students
- Rewriting options (modernize, change POV to the canary, expand into a longer story)
- Dramatic script adaptation or short scene for performance
- Translation into another language
- Concise review or recommendation blurb

Quick one-line summary to start: A stowaway canary on a space station faintly alerts the crew to a partial air-purifier failure (and a disabled alarm), saving their lives and illustrating the value of simple redundancy.

Which of the options above would you like me to do?