I've always looked upon the Ducks as caricature human beings. Perhaps I've been years writing in that middle world that J.R.R. Tolkien describes, and never knew it.
“It's important to bring things back from the Space Station because, unlike somebody living at the house where the garbage truck comes by twice a week, they don't have that in space.”
“It has an air about it of having strolled in from the street with a few tricks up its sleeve, and if everybody would relax, please, it would do its best to pass the time whimsically.”