Try to remember!

By Frank Herbert

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Title: Try to remember!

Author: Frank Herbert

Release date: May 10, 2024 [eBook #73595]

Language: English

Original publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1961

Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRY TO REMEMBER! ***





                           TRY to REMEMBER!

                           By FRANK HERBERT

                         Illustrated by FINLAY

    _The science of language--an overly-neglected field for the
    extrapolations of science-fiction--is put to brilliant use in this
    powerful story. Against a background of ultimate peril from a
    galactic invader, man (in this case, woman) goes back beyond Babel
    to recall for humanity the places of the soul, where words are not
    enough._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Amazing Stories October 1961.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Every mind on earth capable of understanding the problem was focused on
the spaceship and the ultimatum delivered by its occupants. _Talk or
Die!_ blared the newspaper headlines.

The suicide rate was up and still climbing. Religious cults were having
a field day. A book by a science fiction author: "What the Deadly
Inter-Galactic Spaceship Means to You!" had smashed all previous
best-seller records. And this had been going on for a frantic seven
months.

The ship had _flapped_ out of a gun-metal sky over Oregon, its shape
that of a hideously magnified paramecium with edges that rippled like a
mythological flying carpet. Its five green-skinned, froglike occupants
had delivered the ultimatum, one copy printed on velvety paper to each
major government, each copy couched faultlessly in the appropriate
native tongue:

"_You are requested to assemble your most gifted experts in human
communication. We are about to submit a problem. We will open five
identical rooms of our vessel to you. One of us will be available in
each room._

"_Your problem: To communicate with us._

"_If you succeed, your rewards will be great._

"_If you fail, that will result in destruction for all sentient life on
your planet._

"_We announce this threat with the deepest regret. You are urged
to examine Eniwetok atoll for a small display of our power. Your
artificial satellites have been removed from the skies._

"_You must break away from this limited communication!_"

Eniwetok had been cleared off flat as a table at one thousand feet
depth ... with no trace of explosion! All Russian and United States
artificial satellites had been combed from the skies.

       *       *       *       *       *

All day long a damp wind poured up the Columbia Gorge from the ocean.
It swept across the Eastern Oregon alkali flats with a false prediction
of rain. Spiny desert scrub bent before the gusts, sheltering
blur-footed coveys of quail and flop-eared jackrabbits. Heaps of
tumbleweed tangled in the fence lines, and the air was filled with dry
particles of grit that crept under everything and into everything and
onto everything with the omnipresence of filterable virus.

On the flats south of the Hermiston Ordnance Depot the weird bulk of
the spaceship caught pockets and eddies of sand. The thing looked
like a monstrous oval of dun canvas draped across upright sticks. A
cluster of quonsets and the Army's new desert prefabs dotted a rough
half-circle around the north rim. They looked like dwarfed outbuildings
for the most gigantic circus tent Earth had ever seen. Army Engineers
said the ship was six thousand two hundred and eighteen feet long, one
thousand and fifty-four feet wide.

Some five miles east of the site the dust storm hazed across the
monotonous structures of the cantonment that housed some thirty
thousand people from every major nation: Linguists, anthropologists,
psychologists, doctors of every shape and description, watchers and
watchers for the watchers, spies, espionage and counter-espionage
agents.

For seven months the threat of Eniwetok, the threat of the unknown as
well, had held them in check.

Toward evening of this day the wind slackened. The drifted sand began
sifting off the ship and back into new shapes, trickling down for all
the world like the figurative "sands of time" that here were most
certainly running out.

Mrs. Francine Millar, clinical psychologist with the Indo-European
Germanic-Root team, hurried across the bare patch of trampled sand
outside the spaceship's entrance. She bent her head against what was
left of the windstorm. Under her left arm she carried her briefcase
tucked up like a football. Her other hand carried a rolled-up copy of
that afternoon's _Oregon Journal_. The lead story said that Air Force
jets had shot down a small private plane trying to sneak into the
restricted area. Three unidentified men killed. The plane had been
stolen.

Thoughts of a plane crash made her too aware of the circumstances in
her own recent widowhood. Dr. Robert Millar had died in the crash of
a trans-Atlantic passenger plane ten days before the arrival of the
spaceship. She let the newspaper fall out of her hands. It fluttered
away on the wind.

Francine turned her head away from a sudden biting of the sandblast
wind. She was a wiry slim figure of about five feet six inches, still
trim and athletic at forty-one. Her auburn hair, mussed by the wind,
still carried the look of youth. Heavy lids shielded her blue eyes. The
lids drooped slightly, giving her a perpetual sleepy look even when
she was wide awake and alert--a circumstance she found helpful in her
profession.

She came into the lee of the conference quonset, and straightened.
A layer of sand covered the doorstep. She opened the door, stepped
across the sand only to find more of it on the floor inside, grinding
underfoot. It was on tables, on chairs, mounded in corners--on every
surface.

       *       *       *       *       *

Hikonojo Ohashi, Francine's opposite number with the Japanese-Korean
and Sino-Tibetan team, already sat at his place on the other side of
the table. The Japanese psychologist was grasping, pen fashion, a thin
pointed brush, making notes in ideographic shorthand.

Francine closed the door.

Ohashi spoke without looking up: "We're early."

He was a trim, neat little man: flat features, smooth cheeks, and even
curve of chin, remote dark eyes behind the inevitable thick lenses of
the Oriental scholar.

Francine tossed her briefcase onto the table, and pulled out a chair
opposite Ohashi. She wiped away the grit with a handkerchief before
sitting down. The ever present dirt, the monotonous landscape, her
own frustration--all combined to hold her on the edge of anger. She
recognized the feeling and its source, stifled a wry smile.

"No, Hiko," she said. "I think we're late. It's later than we think."

"Much later when you put it that way," said Ohashi. His Princeton
accent came out low, modulated like a musical instrument under the
control of a master.

"Now we're going to be banal," she said. Immediately, she regretted the
sharpness of her tone, forced a smile to her lips.

"They gave us no deadline," said Ohashi. "That is one thing anyway." He
twirled his brush across an inkstone.

"Something's in the air," she said. "I can feel it."

"Very much sand in the air," he said.

"You know what I mean," she said.

"The wind has us all on edge," he said. "It feels like rain. A change
in the weather." He made another note, put down the brush, and began
setting out papers for the conference. All at once, his head came
up. He smiled at Francine. The smile made him look immature, and she
suddenly saw back through the years to a serious little boy named Hiko
Ohashi.

"It's been seven months," she said. "It stands to reason that they're
not going to wait forever."

"The usual gestation period is two months longer," he said.

She frowned, ignoring the quip. "But we're no closer today than we were
at the beginning!"

Ohashi leaned forward. His eyes appeared to swell behind the thick
lenses. "Do you often wonder at their insistence that _we_ communicate
with _them_? I mean, rather than the other way around?"

"Of course I do. So does everybody else."

He sat back. "What do you think of the Islamic team's approach?"

"You know what I think, Hiko. It's a waste of time to compare all the
Galactics' speech sounds to passages from the Koran." She shrugged.
"But for all we know actually they could be closer to a solution than
anyone else in...."

The door behind her banged open. Immediately, the room rumbled with
the great basso voice of Theodore Zakheim, psychologist with the
Ural-Altaic team.

"Hah-haaaaaaa!" he roared. "We're all here now!"

Light footsteps behind Zakheim told Francine that he was accompanied by
Emile Goré of the Indo-European Latin-Root team.

Zakheim flopped onto a chair beside Francine. It creaked dangerously to
his bulk.

_Like a great uncouth bear!_ she thought.

"Do you always have to be so noisy?" she asked.

Goré slammed the door behind them.

"Naturally!" boomed Zakheim. "I am noisy! It's my nature, my little
puchkin!"

Goré moved behind Francine, passing to the head of the table, but she
kept her attention on Zakheim. He was a thick-bodied man, thick without
fat, like the heaviness of a wrestler. His wide face and slanting
pale blue eyes carried hints of Mongol ancestry. Rusty hair formed an
uncombed brush atop his head.

Zakheim brought up his briefcase, flopped it onto the table, rested
his hands on the dark leather. They were flat slab hands with thick
fingers, pale wisps of hair growing down almost to the nails.

       *       *       *       *       *

She tore her attention away from Zakheim's hands, looked down the
table to where Goré sat. The Frenchman was a tall, gawk-necked man,
entirely bald. Jet eyes behind steel-rimmed bifocals gave him a look
of down-nose asperity like a comic bird. He wore one of his usual
funereal black suits, every button secured. Knob wrists protruded from
the sleeves. His long-fingered hands with their thick joints moved in
constant restlessness.

"If I may differ with you, Zak," said Goré, "we are _not_ all here.
This is our same old group, and we were going to try to interest others
in what we do here."

Ohashi spoke to Francine: "Have you had any luck inviting others to our
conferences?"

"You can see that I'm alone," she said. "I chalked up five flat
refusals today."

"Who?" asked Zakheim.

"The American Indian-Eskimo, the Hyperboreans, the Dravidians, the
Malayo-Polynesians and the Caucasians."

"Hagglers!" barked Zakheim. "I, of course, can cover us with the
Hamito-Semitic tongues, but...." He shook his head.

Goré turned to Ohashi. "The others?"

Ohashi said: "I must report the polite indifference of the Munda and
Mon-Kmer, the Sudanese-Guinean and the Bantu."

"Those are big holes in our information exchange," said Goré. "What are
they discovering?"

"No more than we are!" snapped Zakheim. "Depend on it!"

"What of the languages not even represented among the teams here on the
international site?" asked Francine. "I mean the Hottentot-Bushmen, the
Ainu, the Basque and the Australian-Papuan?"

Zakheim covered her left hand with his right hand. "You always have me,
my little dove."

"We're building another Tower of Babel!" she snapped. She jerked her
hand away.

"Spurned again," mourned Zakheim.

Ohashi said: "_Go to, let us go down, and there confound their
language, that they may not understand one another's speech._" He
smiled. "Genesis eleven-seven."

Francine scowled. "And we're missing about twenty percent of Earth's
twenty-eight hundred languages!"

"We have all the significant ones," said Zakheim.

"How do _you_ know what's significant?" she demanded.

"Please!" Goré raised a hand. "We're here to exchange information, not
to squabble!"

"I'm sorry," said Francine. "It's just that I feel so hopeless today."

"Well, what have we learned today?" asked Goré.

"Nothing new with us," said Zakheim.

Goré cleared his throat. "That goes double for me." He looked at Ohashi.

The Japanese shrugged. "We achieved no reaction from the Galactic,
Kobai."

"Anthropomorphic nonsense," muttered Zakheim.

"You mean naming him Kobai?" asked Ohashi. "Not at all, Zak. That's the
most frequent sound he makes, and the name helps with identification.
We don't have to keep referring to him as 'The Galactic' or 'that
creature in the spaceship'."

Goré turned to Francine. "It was like talking to a green statue," she
said.

"What of the lecture period?" asked Goré.

"Who knows?" she asked. "It stands there like a bowlegged professor in
that black leotard. Those sounds spew out of it as though they'd never
stop. It wriggles at us. It waves. It sways. Its face contorts, if you
can call it a face. We recorded and filmed it all, naturally, but it
sounded like the usual mish-mash!"

"There's something in the gestures," said Ohashi. "If we only had more
competent pasimolgists."

"How many times have you seen the same total gesture repeated with the
same sound?" demanded Zakheim.

"You've carefully studied our films," said Ohashi. "Not enough times to
give us a solid base for comparison. But I do not despair--"

"It was a rhetorical question," said Zakheim.

"We really need more multi-linguists," said Goré. "Now is when we most
miss the loss of such great linguists as Mrs. Millar's husband."

       *       *       *       *       *

Francine closed her eyes, took a short, painful breath. "Bob...." She
shook her head. _No. That's the past. He's gone. The tears are ended._

"I had the pleasure of meeting him in Paris shortly before the ...
end," continued Goré. "He was lecturing on the development of the
similar sound schemes in Italian and Japanese."

Francine nodded. She felt suddenly empty.

Ohashi leaned forward. "I imagine this is ... rather painful for Dr.
Millar," he said.

"I am _very_ sorry," said Goré. "Forgive me."

"Someone was going to check and see if there are any electronic
listening devices in this room," said Ohashi.

"My nephew is with our recording section," said Goré. "He assures me
there are no hidden microphones here."

Zakheim's brows drew down into a heavy frown. He fumbled with the clasp
of his briefcase. "This is very dangerous," he grunted.

"Oh, Zak, you always say that!" said Francine. "Let's quit playing
footsy!"

"I do not enjoy the thought of treason charges," muttered Zakheim.

"We all know our bosses are looking for an advantage," she said. "I'm
tired of these sparring matches where we each try to get something from
the others without giving anything away!"

"If your Dr. Langsmith or General Speidel found out what you were doing
here, it would go hard for you, too," said Zakheim.

"I propose we take it from the beginning and re-examine everything,"
said Francine. "Openly this time."

"Why?" demanded Zakheim.

"Because I'm satisfied that the answer's right in front of us
somewhere," she said.

"In the ultimatum, no doubt," said Goré. "What do you suppose is the
_real_ meaning of their statement that human languages are '_limited_'
communication? Perhaps they are telepathic?"

"I don't think so," said Ohashi.

"That's pretty well ruled out," said Francine. "Our Rhine people say
no ESP. No. I'm banking on something else: By the very fact that they
posed this question, they have indicated that we _can_ answer it with
our present faculties."

"_If_ they are being honest," said Zakheim.

"I have no recourse but to assume that they're honest," she said.
"They're turning us into linguistic detectives for a good reason."

"A good reason for _them_," said Goré.

"Note the phraseology of their ultimatum," said Ohashi. "They _submit_
a problem. They _open_ their rooms to us. They are _available_ to us.
They _regret_ their threat. Even their display of power--admittedly
awe-inspiring--has the significant characteristic of non-violence. No
explosion. They offer rewards for success, and this...."

"Rewards!" snorted Zakheim. "We lead the hog to its slaughter with a
promise of food!"

"I suggest that they give evidence of being non-violent," said Ohashi.
"Either that, or they have cleverly arranged themselves to present the
_face_ of non-violence."

Francine turned, and looked out the hut's end window at the bulk of the
spaceship. The low sun cast elongated shadows of the ship across the
sand.

Zakheim, too, looked out the window. "Why did they choose this place?
If it had to be a desert, why not the Gobi? This is not even a good
desert! This is a miserable desert!"

"Probably the easiest landing curve to a site near a large city," said
Goré. "It is possible they chose a desert to avoid destroying arable
land."

"Frogs!" snapped Zakheim. "I do not trust these frogs with their
problem of communication!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Francine turned back to the table, and took a pencil and scratch-pad
from her briefcase. Briefly she sketched a rough outline of a Galactic,
and wrote "frog?" beside it.

Ohashi said: "Are you drawing a picture of your Galactic?"

"We call it 'Uru' for the same reason you call yours 'Kobai'," she
said. "It makes the sound 'Uru' ad nauseum."

She stared at her own sketch thoughtfully, calling up the memory image
of the Galactic as she did so. Squat, about five feet ten inches in
height, with the short bowed legs of a swimmer. Rippling muscles sent
corded lines under the black leotards. The arms were articulated like
a human's, but they were more graceful in movement. The skin was pale
green, the neck thick and short. The wide mouth was almost lipless,
the nose a mere blunt horn. The eyes were large and spaced wide with
nictating lids. No hair, but a high crowned ridge from the center of
the forehead swept back across the head.

"I knew a Hawaiian distance swimmer once who looked much like these
Galactics," said Ohashi. He wet his lips with his tongue. "You know,
today we had a Buddhist monk from Java at our meeting with Kobai."

"I fail to see the association between a distance swimmer and a monk,"
said Goré.

"You told us you drew a blank today," said Zakheim.

"The monk tried no conversing," said Ohashi. "He refused because that
would be a form of Earthly striving unthinkable for a Buddhist. He
merely came and observed."

Francine leaned forward. "Yes?" She found an odd excitement in the way
Ohashi was forcing himself to casualness.

"The monk's reaction was curious," said Ohashi. "He refused to speak
for several hours afterward. Then he said that these Galactics must be
very holy people."

"Holy!" Zakheim's voice was edged with bitter irony.

"We are approaching this the wrong way," said Francine. She felt let
down, spoke with a conscious effort. "Our access to these Galactics is
limited by the space they've opened to us within their vessel."

"What is in the rest of the ship?" asked Zakheim.

"Rewards, perhaps," said Goré.

"Or weapons to demolish us!" snapped Zakheim.

"The pattern of the sessions is wrong, too," said Francine.

Ohashi nodded. "Twelve hours a day is not enough," he said. "We should
have them under constant observation."

"I didn't mean that," said Francine. "They probably need rest just as
we do. No. I meant the absolute control our team leaders--unimaginative
men like Langsmith--have over the way we use our time in those rooms.
For instance, what would happen if we tried to break down the force
wall or whatever it is that keeps us from actually touching these
creatures? What would happen if we brought in dogs to check how
_animals_ would react to them?" She reached in her briefcase, brought
out a small flat recorder, and adjusted it for playback. "Listen to
this."

       *       *       *       *       *

There was a fluid burst of sound: "Pau'timónsh'uego' ikloprépre 'sauta'
urusa'a'a ..." and a long pause followed by: "tu'kimóomo 'urulig
'lurulil 'oog 'shuquetoé ..." pause "sum 'a 'suma 'a 'uru 't 'shóap!'"

Francine stopped the playback.

"Did you record that today?" asked Ohashi.

"Yes. It was using that odd illustration board with the moving
pictures--weird flowers and weirder animals."

"We've seen them," muttered Zakheim.

"And those chopping movements of its hands," said Francine. "The
swaying body, the undulations, the facial contortions." She shook her
head. "It's almost like a bizarre dance."

"What are you driving at?" asked Ohashi.

"I've been wondering what would happen if we had a leading
choreographer compose a dance to those sounds, and if we put it on
for...."

"Faaa!" snorted Zakheim.

"All right," said Francine. "But we should be using some kind of
random stimulation pattern on these Galactics. Why don't we bring in a
nightclub singer? Or a circus barker? Or a magician? Or...."

"We tried a full-blown schizoid," said Goré.

Zakheim grunted. "And you got exactly what such tactics deserve: your
schizoid sat there and played with his fingers for an hour!"

"The idea of using artists from the entertainment world intrigues me,"
said Ohashi. "Some _No_ dancers, perhaps." He nodded. "I'd never
thought about it. But art is, after all, a form of communication."

"So is the croaking of a frog in a swamp," said Zakheim.

"Did you ever hear about the Paradox Frog?" asked Francine.

"Is this one of your strange jokes?" asked Zakheim.

"Of course not. The Paradox Frog is a very real creature. It lives
on the island of Trinidad. It's a very small frog, but it has the
opposable thumb on a five-fingered hand, and it...."

"Just like our visitors," said Zakheim.

"Yes. And it uses its hand just like we do--to grasp things, to pick up
food, to stuff its mouth, to...."

"To make bombs?" asked Zakheim.

Francine shrugged, turned away. She felt hurt.

"My people believe these Galactics are putting on an elaborate sham,"
said Zakheim. "We think they are stalling while they secretly study us
in preparation for invasion!"

Goré said: "So?" His narrow shoulders came up in a Gallic shrug that
said as plainly as words: "_Even if this is true, what is there for us
to do?_"

Francine turned to Ohashi. "What's the favorite theory current with
your team?" Her voice sounded bitter, but she was unable to soften the
tone.

"We are working on the assumption that this is a language of
one-syllable root, as in Chinese," said Ohashi.

"But what of the vowel harmony?" protested Goré. "Surely that must mean
the harmonious vowels are all in the same words."

Ohashi adjusted the set of his glasses. "Who knows?" he asked.
"Certainly, the back vowels and front vowels come together many times,
but...." He shrugged, shook his head.

"What's happening with the group that's working on the historical
analogy?" asked Goré. "You were going to find out, Ohashi."

"They are working on the assumption that all primitive sounds are
consonants with non-fixed vowels ... foot-stampers for dancing, you
know. Their current guess is that the galactics are missionaries, their
language a religious language."

"What results?" asked Zakheim.

"None."

Zakheim nodded. "To be expected." He glanced at Francine. "I beg the
forgiveness of the Mrs. Doctor Millar?"

She looked up, startled from a daydreaming speculation about the
Galactic language and dancing. "Me? Good heavens, why?"

"I have been short-tempered today," said Zakheim. He glanced at
his wristwatch. "I'm very sorry. I've been worried about another
appointment."

He heaved his bulk out of the chair, took up his briefcase. "And it is
time for me to be leaving. You forgive me?"

"Of course, Zak."

His wide face split into a grin. "Good!"

Goré got to his feet. "I will walk a little way with you, Zak."

       *       *       *       *       *

Francine and Ohashi sat on for a moment after the others had gone.

"What good are we doing with these meetings?" she asked.

"Who knows how the important pieces of this puzzle will be fitted
together?" asked Ohashi. "The point is: we are doing something
different."

She sighed. "I guess so."

Ohashi took off his glasses, and it made him appear suddenly
defenseless. "Did you know that Zak was recording our meeting?" he
asked. He replaced the glasses.

Francine stared at him. "How do you know?"

Ohashi tapped his briefcase. "I have a device in here that reveals such
things."

She swallowed a brief surge of anger. "Well, is it really important,
Hiko?"

"Perhaps not." Ohashi took a deep, evenly controlled breath. "I did not
tell you one other thing about the Buddhist monk."

"Oh. What did you omit?"

"He predicts that we will fail--that the human race will be destroyed.
He is very old and very cynical for a monk. He thinks it is a good
thing that all human striving must eventually come to an end."

Anger and a sudden resolve flamed in her. "I don't care! I don't care
what anyone else thinks! I know that...." She allowed her voice to
trail off, put her hands to her eyes.

"You have been very distracted today," said Ohashi. "Did the talk about
your late husband disturb you?"

"I know. I'm...." She swallowed, whispered: "I had a dream about Bob
last night. We were dancing, and he was trying to tell me something
about this problem, only I couldn't hear him. Each time he started to
speak the music got louder and drowned him out."

Silence fell over the room.

Presently, Ohashi said: "The unconscious mind takes strange ways
sometimes to tell us the right answers. Perhaps we should investigate
this idea of dancing."

"Oh, Hiko! Would you help me?"

"I should consider it an honor to help you," he said.

       *       *       *       *       *

It was quiet in the semi-darkness of the projection room. Francine
leaned her head against the back rest of her chair, looked across
at the stand light where Ohashi had been working. He had gone for
the films on Oriental ritual dances that had just arrived from Los
Angeles by plane. His coat was still draped across the back of his
chair, his pipe still smouldered in the ashtray on the work-table.
All around their two chairs were stacked the residue of four days'
almost continuous research: notebooks, film cans, boxes of photographs,
reference books.

She thought about Hiko Ohashi: a strange man. He was fifty and didn't
look a day over thirty. He had grown children. His wife had died of
cholera eight years ago. Francine wondered what it would be like
married to an Oriental, and she found herself thinking that he wasn't
really Oriental with his Princeton education and Occidental ways. Then
she realized that this attitude was a kind of white snobbery.

The door in the corner of the room opened softly. Ohashi came in,
closed the door. "You awake?" he whispered.

She turned her head without lifting it from the chairback. "Yes."

"I'd hoped you might fall asleep for a bit," he said. "You looked so
tired when I left."

Francine glanced at her wristwatch. "It's only three-thirty. What's
the day like?"

"Hot and windy."

Ohashi busied himself inserting film into the projector at the rear of
the room. Presently, he went to his chair, trailing the remote control
cable for the projector.

"Ready?" he asked.

Francine reached for the low editing light beside her chair, and turned
it on, focusing the narrow beam on a notebook in her lap. "Yes. Go
ahead."

"I feel that we're making real progress," said Ohashi. "It's not clear
yet, but the points of identity...."

"They're exciting," she said. "Let's see what this one has to offer."

Ohashi punched the button on the cable. A heavily robed Arab girl
appeared on the screen, slapping a tambourine. Her hair looked stiff,
black and oily. A sooty line of kohl shaded each eye. Her brown dress
swayed slightly as she tinkled the tambourine, then slapped it.

The cultured voice of the commentator came through the speaker beside
the screen: "This is a young girl of Jebel Tobeyk. She is going to
dance some very ancient steps that tell a story of battle. The camera
is hidden in a truck, and she is unaware that this dance is being
photographed."

A reed flute joined the tambourine, and a twanging stringed instrument
came in behind it. The girl turned slowly on one foot, the other raised
with knee bent.

Francine watched in rapt silence. The dancing girl made short staccato
hops, the tambourine jerking in front of her.

"It is reminiscent of some of the material on the Norse sagas," said
Ohashi. "Battle with swords. Note the thrust and parry."

She nodded. "Yes." The dance stamped onward, then: "Wait! Re-run that
last section."

Ohashi obeyed.

       *       *       *       *       *

It started with a symbolic trek on camel-back: swaying, undulating. The
dancing girl expressed longing for her warrior. _How suggestive the
motions of her hands along her hips_, thought Francine. With a feeling
of abrupt shock, she recalled seeing almost the exact gesture from one
of the films of the Galactics. "There's one!" she cried.

"The hands on the hips," said Ohashi. "I was just about to stop the
reel." He shut off the film, searched through the notebooks around him
until he found the correct reference.

"I think it was one of Zak's films," said Francine.

"Yes. Here it is." Ohashi brought up a reel, looked at the scene
identifications. He placed the film can on a large stack behind him,
re-started the film of Oriental dances.

Three hours and ten minutes later they put the film back in its can.

"How many new comparisons do you make it?" asked Ohashi.

"Five," she said. "That makes one hundred and six in all!" Francine
leafed through her notes. "There was the motion of the hands on the
hips. I call that one sensual pleasure."

Ohashi lighted a pipe, spoke through a cloud of smoke. "The others: How
have you labeled them?"

"Well, I've just put a note on the motions of one of the Galactics and
then the commentator's remarks from this dance film. Chopping motion of
the hand ties to the end of Sobaya's first dream: '_Now, I awaken!_'
Undulation of the body ties in with swaying of date palms in the desert
wind. Stamping of the foot goes with Torak dismounting from his steed.
Lifting hands, palms up--that goes with Ali offering his soul to God in
prayer before battle."

"Do you want to see this latest film from the ship?" asked Ohashi. He
glanced at his wristwatch. "Or shall we get a bite to eat first?"

She waved a hand distractedly. "The film. I'm not hungry. The film."
She looked up. "I keep feeling that there's something I should
remember ... something...." She shook her head.

"Think about it a few minutes," said Ohashi. "I'm going to send out
these other films to be cut and edited according to our selections. And
I'll have some sandwiches sent in while I'm at it."

Francine rubbed at her forehead. "All right."

Ohashi gathered up a stack of film cans, left the room. He knocked out
his pipe on a "No Smoking" sign beside the door as he left.

"Consonants," whispered Francine. "The ancient alphabets were almost
exclusively made up of consonants. Vowels came later. They were the
softeners, the swayers." She chewed at her lower lip. "Language
constricts the _ways_ you can think." She rubbed at her forehead. "Oh,
if I only had Bob's ability with languages!"

She tapped her fingers on the chair arm. "It has something to do with
our emphasis on _things_ rather than on people and the things people
do. Every Indo-European language is the same on that score. If only...."

"Talking to yourself?" It was a masculine voice, startling her because
she had not heard the door open.

Francine jerked upright, turned toward the door. Dr. Irving Langsmith,
chief of the American Division of the Germanic-Root team stood just
inside, closing the door.

"Haven't seen you for a couple of days," he said. "We got your note
that you were indisposed." He looked around the room, then at the
clutter on the floor beside the chairs.

Francine blushed.

       *       *       *       *       *

Dr. Langsmith crossed to the chair Ohashi had occupied, sat down. He
was a grey-haired runt of a man with a heavily seamed face, small
features--a gnome figure with hard eyes. He had the reputation of an
organizer and politician with more drive than genius. He pulled a
stubby pipe from his pocket, lighted it.

"I probably should have cleared this through channels," she said. "But
I had visions of it getting bogged down in red tape, especially with
Hiko ... I mean with another team represented in this project."

"Quite all right," said Langsmith. "We knew what you were up to within
a couple of hours. Now, we want to know what you've discovered. Dr.
Ohashi looked pretty excited when he left here a bit ago."

Her eyes brightened. "I think we're onto something," she said. "We've
compared the Galactics' movements to known symbolism from primitive
dances."

Dr. Langsmith chuckled. "That's very interesting, my dear, but surely
you...."

"No, really!" she said. "We've found one hundred and six points of
comparison, almost exact duplication of movements!"

"Dances? Are you trying to tell me that...."

"I know it sounds strange," she said, "but we...."

"Even if you _have_ found exact points of comparison, that means
nothing," said Langsmith. "These are _aliens_ ... from another world.
You've no right to assume that their language development would follow
the same pattern as ours has."

"But they're humanoid!" she said. "Don't you believe that language
started as the unconscious shaping of the _speech_ organs to imitate
_bodily_ gestures?"

"It's highly likely," said Langsmith.

"We can make quite a few pretty safe assumptions about them," she
said. "For one thing, they apparently have a rather high standard of
civilization to be able to construct--"

"Let's not labor the obvious," interrupted Langsmith, a little
impatiently.

Francine studied the team chief a moment, said: "Did you ever hear how
Marshal Foch planned his military campaigns?"

Langsmith puffed on his pipe, took it out of his mouth. "Uh ... are
you suggesting that a military...."

"He wrote out the elements of his problem on a sheet of paper," said
Francine. "At the top of the paper went the lowest common denominator.
There, he wrote: '_Problem--To beat the Germans._' Quite simple. Quite
obvious. But oddly enough _beating the enemy_ has frequently been
overlooked by commanders who got too involved in complicated maneuvers."

"Are you suggesting that the Galactics are enemies?"

She shook her head indignantly. "I am _not_! I'm suggesting that
language is primarily an instinctive social reflex. The least common
denominator of a social problem is a human being. One single human
being. And here we are all involved with getting this thing into
mathematical equations and neat word frequency primarily oral!"

"But you've been researching a visual...."

"Yes! But only as it modifies the sounds." She leaned toward Langsmith.
"Dr. Langsmith, I believe that this language is a _flexional_ language
with the flexional endings and root changes contained entirely in the
bodily movements!"

"Hmmmmmmm." Langsmith studied the smoke spiraling ceilingward from his
pipe. "Fascinating idea!"

"We can assume that this is a highly standardized language,"
said Francine. "Basing the assumption on their high standard of
civilization. The two usually go hand in hand."

Langsmith nodded.

"Then the gestures, the sounds would tend to be ritual," she said.

"Mmmmm-hmmmm."

"Then ... may we have the help to go into this idea the way it
deserves?" she asked.

"I'll take it up at the next top staff meeting," said Langsmith. He got
to his feet. "Don't get your hopes up. This'll have to be submitted
to the electronic computers. It probably has been cross-checked and
rejected in some other problem."

She looked up at him, dismayed. "But ... Dr. Langsmith ... a computer's
no better than what's put into it. I'm certain that we're stepping out
into a region here where we'll have to build up a whole new approach to
language."

"Now, don't you worry," said Langsmith. He frowned. "No ... don't worry
about _this_."

"Shall we go ahead with what we're doing then?" she asked. "I mean--do
we have permission to?"

"Yes, yes ... of course." Langsmith wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand. "General Speidel has called a special meeting tomorrow
morning. I'd like to have you attend. I'll send somebody to pick you
up." He waved a hand at the litter around Francine. "Carry on, now."
There was a pathetic emptiness to the way he put his pipe in his mouth
and left the room. Francine stared at the closed door.

She felt herself trembling, and recognized that she was deathly afraid.
_Why?_ she asked herself. _What have I sensed to make me afraid?_

       *       *       *       *       *

Presently, Ohashi came in carrying a paper bag.

"Saw Langsmith going out," he said. "What did he want?"

"He wanted to know what we're doing."

Ohashi paused beside his chair. "Did you tell him?"

"Yes. I asked for help." She shook her head. "He wouldn't commit
himself."

"I brought ham sandwiches," said Ohashi.

Francine's chin lifted abruptly. "Defeated!" she said. "That's it! He
acted completely defeated!"

"What?"

"I've been trying to puzzle through the strange way Langsmith was
acting. He just radiated defeat."

Ohashi handed her a sandwich. "Better brace yourself for a shock," he
said. "I ran into Tsu Ong, liaison officer for our delegation ... in
the cafeteria." The Japanese raised the sandwich sack over his chair,
dropped it into the seat with a curious air of preciseness. "The
Russians are pressing for a combined attack on the Galactic ship to
wrest their secret from them by force."

Francine buried her face in her hands. "The fools!" she whispered. "Oh,
the fools!" Abruptly, sobs shook her. She found herself crying with the
same uncontrollable wracking that had possessed her when she'd learned
of her husband's death.

Ohashi waited silently.

The tears subsided. Control returned. She swallowed, said: "I'm sorry."

"Do not be sorry." He put a hand on her shoulder. "Shall we knock off
for the night?"

She put her hand over his, shook her head. "No. Let's look at the
latest films from the ship."

"As you wish." Ohashi pulled away, threaded a new film into the
projector.

Presently, the screen came alive to a blue-grey alcove filled with
pale light: one of the "class" rooms in the spaceship. A squat,
green-skinned figure stood in the center of the room. Beside the
Galactic was the pedestal-footed projection board that all five used to
illustrate their "lectures". The board displayed a scene of a wide blue
lake, reeds along the shore stirring to a breeze.

The Galactic swayed. His face moved like a ripple of water. He said:
"Ahon'atu'uklah'shoginai'eástruru." The green arms moved up and
down, undulating. The webbed hands came out, palms facing and almost
touching, began chopping from the wrists: up, down, up, down, up,
down....

On the projection board the scene switched to an under-water view:
myriad swimming shapes coming closer, closer--large-eyed fish creatures
with long ridged tails.

"Five will get you ten," said Ohashi. "Those are the young of this
Galactic race. Notice the ridge."

"Tadpoles," said Francine.

The swimming shapes darted through orange shadows and into a space
of cold green--then up to splash on the surface, and again down into
the cool green. It was a choreographic swinging, lifting, dipping,
swaying--lovely in its synchronized symmetry.

"Chiruru'uklia'a'agudav'iaá," said the Galactic. His body undulated
like the movements of the swimming creatures. The green hands touched
his thighs, slipped upward until elbows were level with shoulders.

"The maiden in the Oriental dance," said Francine.

Now, the hands came out, palms up, in a gesture curiously suggestive of
giving. The Galactic said: "Pluainumiuri!" in a single burst of sound
that fell on their ears like an explosion.

"It's like a distorted version of the ritual dances we've been
watching," said Ohashi.

"I've a hunch," said Francine. "Feminine intuition. The repeated
vowels: they could be an adverbial emphasis, like our word _very_.
Where it says '_a-a-a_' note the more intense gestures."

She followed another passage, nodding her head to the gestures. "Hiko,
could this be a constructed language? Artificial?"

"The thought has occurred to me," said Ohashi.

       *       *       *       *       *

Abruptly, the projector light dimmed, the action slowed. All lights
went out. They heard a dull, booming roar in the distance, a staccato
rattling of shots. Feet pounded along the corridor outside the room.

Francine sat in stunned silence.

Ohashi said: "Stay here, please. I will have a look around to see
what...."

The door banged open and a flashlight beam stabbed into the room,
momentarily blinding them.

"Everything all right in here?" boomed a masculine voice.

They made out a white MP helmet visible behind the light.

"Yes," said Ohashi. "What is happening?"

"Somebody blew up a tower to the main transmission line from McNary
Dam. Then there was an attempt to breach our security blockade on the
south. Everything will be back to normal shortly." The light turned
away.

"Who?" asked Francine.

"Some crazy civilians," said the MP. "We'll have the emergency power on
in a minute. Just stay in this room until we give the all clear." He
left, closing the door.

They heard a rattle of machinegun fire. Another explosion shook the
building. Voices shouted.

"We are witnessing the end of a world," said Ohashi.

"Our world ended when that spaceship set down here," she said.

Abruptly, the lights came on: glowing dimly, then brighter. The
projector resumed its whirring. Ohashi turned it off.

Somebody walked down the corridor outside, rapped on the door, said:
"All clear." The footsteps receded down the hall, and they heard
another rapping, a fainter "All clear."

"Civilians," she said. "What do you suppose they wanted so desperately
to do a thing like that?"

"They are a symptom of the general sickness," said Ohashi. "One way to
remove a threat is to destroy it--even if you destroy yourself in the
process. These civilians are only a minor symptom."

"The Russians are the big symptom then," she said.

"Every major government is a _big_ symptom right now," he said.

"I ... I think I'll get back to my room," she said. "Let's take up
again tomorrow morning. Eight o'clock all right?"

"Quite agreeable," said Ohashi. "If there is a tomorrow."

"Don't _you_ get that way, too," she said, and she took a quavering
breath. "I refuse to give up."

Ohashi bowed. He was suddenly very Oriental. "There is a primitive
saying of the Ainu," he said: "_The world ends every night ... and
begins anew every morning._"

       *       *       *       *       *

It was a room dug far underground beneath the Ordnance Depot,
originally for storage of atomics. The walls were lead. It was an
oblong space: about thirty by fifteen feet, with a very low ceiling.
Two trestle tables had been butted end-to-end in the center of the
room to form a single long surface. A series of green-shaded lights
suspended above this table gave the scene an odd resemblance to a
gambling room. The effect was heightened by the set look to the
shoulders of the men sitting in spring bottom chairs around the table.
There were a scattering of uniforms: Air Force, Army, Marines; plus
hard-faced civilians in expensive suits.

Dr. Langsmith occupied a space at the middle of one of the table's
sides and directly across from the room's only door. His gnome features
were locked in a frown of concentration. He puffed rhythmically at the
stubby pipe like a witchman creating an oracle smoke.

A civilian across the table from Langsmith addressed a two-star general
seated beside the team chief: "General Speidel, I still think this is
too delicate a spot to risk a woman."

Speidel grunted. He was a thin man with a high, narrow face: an
aristocratic face that radiated granite convictions and stubborn pride.
There was an air about him of spring steel under tension and vibrating
to a chord that dominated the room.

"Our choice is limited," said Langsmith. "Very few of our personnel
have consistently taken wheeled carts into the ship _and_ consistently
taken a position close to that force barrier or whatever it is."

Speidel glanced at his wristwatch. "What's keeping them?"

"She may already have gone to breakfast," said Langsmith.

"Be better if we got her in here hungry and jumpy," said the civilian.

"Are you sure you can handle her, Smitty?" asked Speidel.

Langsmith took his pipe from his mouth, peered into the stem as
though the answer were to be found there. "We've got her pretty well
analyzed," he said. "She's a recent widow, you know. Bound to still
have a rather active death-wish structure."

There was a buzzing of whispered conversation from a group of officers
at one end of the table. Speidel tapped his fingers on the arm of his
chair.

Presently, the door opened. Francine entered. A hand reached in from
outside, closed the door behind her.

"Ah, there you are, Dr. Millar," said Langsmith. He got to his feet.
There was a scuffling sound around the table as the others arose.
Langsmith pointed to an empty chair diagonally across from him. "Sit
down, please."

Francine advanced into the light. She felt intimidated, knew she showed
it, and the realization filled her with a feeling of bitterness tinged
with angry resentment. The ride down the elevator from the surface had
been an experience she never wanted to repeat. It had seemed many times
longer than it actually was--like a descent into Dante's Inferno.

She nodded to Langsmith, glanced covertly at the others, took the
indicated chair. It was a relief to get the weight off her trembling
knees, and she momentarily relaxed, only to tense up again as the
others resumed their seats. She put her hands on the table, immediately
withdrew them to hold them clasped tightly in her lap.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Why was I brought here like a prisoner?" she demanded.

Langsmith appeared honestly startled. "But I told you last night that
I'd send somebody for you."

Speidel chuckled easily. "Some of our Security boys are a little
grim-faced," he said. "I hope they didn't frighten you."

She took a deep breath, began to relax. "Is this about the request
I made last night?" she asked. "I mean for help in this new line of
research?"

"In a way," said Langsmith. "But first I'd like to have you answer a
question for me." He pursed his lips. "Uh ... I've never asked one of
my people for just a wild guess before, but I'm going to break that
rule with you. What's your guess as to why these Galactics are here?"

"Guess?"

"Logical assumption, then," he said.

She looked down at her hands. "We've all speculated, of course. They
might be scientists investigating us for reasons of their own."

"Damnation!" barked the civilian beside her. Then: "Sorry, ma'm. But
that's the pap we keep using to pacify the public."

"And we aren't keeping them very well pacified," said Langsmith. "That
group that stormed us last night called themselves the _Sons of Truth_!
They had thermite bombs, and were going to attack the spaceship."

"How foolish," she whispered. "How pitiful."

"Go on with your guessing, Dr. Millar," said Speidel.

She glanced at the general, again looked at her hands. "There's the
military's idea--that they want Earth for a strategic base in some kind
of space war."

"It could be," said Speidel.

"They could be looking for more living space for their own kind," she
said.

"In which case, what happens to the native population?" asked Langsmith.

"They would either be exterminated or enslaved, I'm afraid. But the
Galactics could be commercial traders of some sort, interested in our
art forms, our animals for their zoos, our archeology, our spices,
our...." She broke off, shrugged. "How do we know what they may be
doing on the side ... secretly?"

"Exactly!" said Speidel. He glanced sidelong at Langsmith. "She talks
pretty level-headed, Smitty."

"But I don't believe any of these things," she said.

"What is it you believe?" asked Speidel.

"I believe they're just what they represent themselves to
be--representatives of a powerful Galactic culture that is immeasurably
superior to our own."

"Powerful, all right!" It was a marine officer at the far end of the
table. "The way they cleaned off Eniwetok and swept our satellites out
of the skies!"

"Do you think there's a possibility they could be concealing their true
motives?" asked Langsmith.

"A possibility, certainly."

"Have you ever watched a confidence man in action?" asked Langsmith.

"I don't believe so. But you're not seriously suggesting that
these...." She shook her head. "Impossible."

"The _mark_ seldom gets wise until it's too late," said Langsmith.

She looked puzzled. "Mark?"

"The fellow the confidence men choose for a victim." Langsmith
re-lighted his pipe, extinguished the match by shaking it. "Dr. Millar,
we have a very painful disclosure to make to you."

She straightened, feeling a sudden icy chill in her veins at the
stillness in the room.

"Your husband's death was not an accident," said Langsmith.

She gasped, and turned deathly pale.

"In the six months before this spaceship landed, there were some
twenty-eight mysterious deaths," said Langsmith. "More than that,
really, because innocent bystanders died, too. These accidents had a
curious similarity: In each instance there was a fatality of a foremost
expert in the field of language, cryptoanalysis, semantics....

"The people who might have solved this problem died before the problem
was even presented," said Speidel. "Don't you think that's a curious
coincidence."

She was unable to speak.

"In one instance there was a survivor," said Langsmith. "A British jet
transport crashed off Ceylon, killing Dr. Ramphit U. The lone survivor,
the co-pilot, said a brilliant beam of light came from the sky overhead
and sliced off the port wing. Then it cut the cabin in half!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Francine put a hand to her throat. Langsmith's cautious hand movements
suddenly fascinated her.

"Twenty-eight air crashes?" she whispered.

"No. Two were auto crashes." Langsmith puffed a cloud of smoke before
his face.

Her throat felt sore. She swallowed, said: "But how can you be sure of
that?"

"It's circumstantial evidence, yes," said Speidel. He spoke with
thin-lipped precision. "But there's more. For the past four months
all astronomical activity of our nation has been focused on the near
heavens, including the moon. Our attention was drawn to evidence of
activity near the moon crater Theophilus. We have been able to make out
the landing rockets of more than five hundred space craft!"

"What do you think of that?" asked Langsmith. He nodded behind his
smoke screen.

She could only stare at him; her lips ashen.

"These _frogs_ have massed an invasion fleet on the moon!" snapped
Speidel. "It's obvious!"

_They're lying to me!_ she thought. _Why this elaborate pretense?_
She shook her head, and something her husband had once said leapt
unbidden into her mind: "_Language clutches at us with unseen fingers.
It conditions us to the way others are thinking. Through language, we
impose upon each other our ways of looking at things._"

Speidel leaned forward. "We have more than a hundred atomic warheads
aimed at that moon-base! One of those warheads will do the job if it
gets through!" He hammered a fist on the table. "But first we have to
capture this ship here!"

_Why are they telling me all this?_ she asked herself. She drew in a
ragged breath, said: "Are you sure you're right?"

"Of course we're sure!" Speidel leaned back, lowered his voice. "Why
else would they insist we learn their language? The first thing a
conqueror does is impose his language on his new slaves!"

"No ... no, wait," she said. "That only applies to recent history.
You're getting language mixed up with patriotism because of our own
imperial history. Bob always said that such misconceptions are a
serious hindrance to sound historical scholarship."

"We know what we're talking about, Dr. Millar," said Speidel.

"You're suspicious of language because our imperialism went hand in
hand with our language," she said.

Speidel looked at Langsmith. "You talk to her."

"If there actually were communication in the sounds these Galactics
make, you know we'd have found it by now," said Langsmith. "You know
it!"

She spoke in sudden anger: "I don't know it! In fact, I feel that we're
on the verge of solving their language with this new approach we've
been working on."

"Oh, come now!" said Speidel. "Do you mean that after our finest
cryptographers have worked over this thing for seven months, you
disagree with them entirely?"

"No, no, let her say her piece," said Langsmith.

"We've tapped a new source of information in attacking this problem,"
she said. "Primitive dances."

"Dances?" Speidel looked shocked.

"Yes. I think the Galactics' gestures may be their adjectives and
adverbs--the full emotional content of their language."

"Emotion!" snapped Speidel. "Emotion isn't language!"

She repressed a surge of anger, said: "We're dealing with something
completely outside our previous experience. We have to discard old
ideas. We know that the habits of a native tongue set up a person's
speaking responses. In fact, you can define language as the system of
habits you reveal when you speak."

       *       *       *       *       *

Speidel tapped his fingers on the table, stared at the door behind
Francine.

She ignored his nervous distraction, said: "The Galactics use almost
the full range of implosive and glottal stops with a wide selection of
vowel sounds: fricatives, plosives, voiced and unvoiced. And we note
an apparent lack of the usual interfering habits you find in normal
speech."

"This isn't normal speech!" blurted Speidel. "Those are nonsense
sounds!" He shook his head. "Emotions!"

"All right," she said. "Emotions! We're pretty certain that language
begins with emotions--pure emotional actions. The baby pushes away the
plate of unwanted food."

"You're wasting our time!" barked Speidel.

"I didn't ask to come down here," she said.

"Please." Langsmith put a hand on Speidel's arm. "Let Dr. Millar have
her say."

"Emotion," muttered Speidel.

"Every spoken language of earth has migrated away from emotion," said
Francine.

"Can you write an emotion on paper?" demanded Speidel.

"That does it," she said. "That really tears it! You're blind! You say
language has to be written down. That's part of the magic! You're mind
is tied in little knots by academic tradition! Language, General, is
primarily oral! People like you, though, want to make it into ritual
noise!"

"I didn't come down here for an egg-head argument!" snapped Speidel.

"Let me handle this, please," said Langsmith. He made a mollifying
gesture toward Francine. "Please continue."

She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I snapped," she said. She smiled. "I
think we let emotion get the best of us."

Speidel frowned.

"I was talking about language moving away from emotion," she said.
"Take Japanese, for example. Instead of saying, 'Thank you' they say,
'Katajikenai'--'I am insulted.' Or they say, 'Kino doku' which means
'This poisonous feeling!'" She held up her hands. "This is ritual
exclusion of showing emotion. Our Indo-European languages--especially
Anglo-Saxon tongues--are moving the same way. We seem to think that
emotion isn't quite nice, that...."

"It tells you nothing!" barked Speidel.

She forced down the anger that threatened to overwhelm her. "If you
can read the emotional signs," she said, "they reveal if a speaker is
telling the truth. That's all, General. They just tell you if you're
getting at the truth. Any good psychologist knows this, General.
Freud said it: 'If you try to conceal your feelings, every pore oozes
betrayal.' You seem to think that the opposite is true."

"Emotions! Dancing!" Speidel pushed his chair back. "Smitty, I've had
as much of this as I can take."

"Just a minute," said Langsmith. "Now, Dr. Millar, I wanted you to
have your say because we've already considered these points. Long ago.
You're interested in the gestures. You say this is a dance of emotions.
Other experts say with equal emphasis that these gestures are ritual
combat! Freud, indeed! They ooze betrayal. This chopping gesture they
make with the right hand"--he chopped the air in illustration--"is
identical to the karate or judo chop for breaking the human neck!"

Francine shook her head, put a hand to her throat. She was momentarily
overcome by a feeling of uncertainty.

Langsmith said: "That outward thrust they make with one hand: that's
the motion of a sword being shoved into an opponent! They ooze betrayal
all right!"

She looked from Langsmith to Speidel, back to Langsmith. A man to her
right cleared his throat.

Langsmith said: "I've just given you two examples. We have hundreds
more. Every analysis we've made has come up with the same answer:
treachery! The pattern's as old as time: offer a reward; pretend
friendship; get the innocent lamb's attention on your empty hand while
you poise the ax in your other hand!"

       *       *       *       *       *

Could I be wrong? she wondered. _Have we been duped by these
Galactics?_ Her lips trembled. She fought to control them, whispered:
"Why are you telling me these things?"

"Aren't you at all interested in revenge against the creatures who
murdered your husband?" asked Speidel.

"I don't know that they murdered him!" She blinked back tears. "You're
trying to confuse me!" And a favorite saying of her husband's came into
her mind: "_A conference is a group of people making a difficult job
out of what one person could do easily._" The room suddenly seemed too
close and oppressive.

"Why have I been dragged into this conference?" she demanded. "Why?"

"We were hoping you'd assist us in capturing that space ship," said
Langsmith.

"Me? Assist you in...."

"Someone has to get a bomb past the force screens at the door--the
ones that keep sand and dirt out of the ship. We've got to have a bomb
inside."

"But why me?"

"They're used to seeing you wheel in the master recorder on that cart,"
said Langsmith. "We thought of putting a bomb in...."

"No!"

"This has gone far enough," said Speidel. He took a deep breath,
started to rise.

"Wait," said Langsmith.

"She obviously has no feelings of patriotic responsibility," said
Speidel. "We're wasting our time."

Langsmith said: "The Galactics are used to seeing her with that cart.
If we change now, they're liable to become suspicious."

"We'll set up some other plan, then," said Speidel. "As far as I'm
concerned, we can write off any possibility of further cooperation from
her."

"You're little boys playing a game," said Francine. "This isn't an
exclusive American problem. This is a human problem that involves every
nation on Earth."

"That ship is on United States soil," said Speidel.

"Which happens to be on the only planet controlled by the human
species," she said. "We ought to be sharing everything with the
other teams, pooling information and ideas to get at every scrap of
knowledge."

"We'd all like to be idealists," said Speidel. "But there's no room for
idealism where our survival is concerned. These _frogs_ have full space
travel, apparently between the stars--not just satellites and moon
rockets. If we get their ship we can enforce peace on our own terms."

"National survival," she said. "But it's our survival as a species
that's at stake!"

Speidel turned to Langsmith. "This is one of your more spectacular
failures, Smitty. We'll have to put her under close surveillance."

Langsmith puffed furiously on his pipe. A cloud of pale blue smoke
screened his head. "I'm ashamed of you, Dr. Millar," he said.

She jumped to her feet, allowing her anger full scope at last. "You
must think I'm a rotten psychologist!" she snapped. "You've been lying
to me since I set foot in here!" She shot a bitter glance at Speidel.
"Your gestures gave you away! The non-communicative emotional gestures,
General!"

"What's she talking about?" demanded Speidel.

"You said different things with your mouths than you said with your
bodies," she explained. "That means you were lying to me--concealing
something vital you didn't want me to know about."

"She's insane!" barked Speidel.

"There wasn't any survivor of a plane crash in Ceylon," she said.
"There probably wasn't even the plane crash you described."

Speidel froze to sudden stillness, spoke through thin lips: "Has there
been a security leak? Good Lord!"

"Look at Dr. Langsmith there!" she said. "Hiding behind that pipe! And
you, General: moving your mouth no more than absolutely necessary to
speak--trying to hide your real feelings! Oozing betrayal!"

"Get her out of here!" barked Speidel.

"You're all logic and no intuition!" she shouted. "No understanding of
feeling and art! Well, General: go back to your computers, but remember
this--You can't build a machine that thinks like a man! You can't
feed emotion into an electronic computer and get back anything except
numbers! Logic, to you, General!"

"I said get her out of here!" shouted Speidel. He rose half out of
his chair, turned to Langsmith who sat in pale silence. "And I want a
thorough investigation! I want to know where the security leak was that
put her wise to our plans."

"Watch yourself!" snapped Langsmith.

Speidel took two deep breaths, sank back.

_They're insane_, thought Francine. _Insane and pushed into a corner.
With that kind of fragmentation they could slip into catatonia or
violence._ She felt weak and afraid.

Others around the table had arisen. Two civilians moved up beside
Francine. "Shall we lock her up, General?" asked one.

Speidel hesitated.

Langsmith spoke first: "No. Just keep her under very close
surveillance. If we locked her up it would arouse questions that we
don't want to answer."

Speidel glowered at Francine. "If you give us away, I'll have you
shot!" He motioned to have her taken out of the room.

       *       *       *       *       *

When she emerged from the headquarters building, Francine's mind still
whirled. _Lies!_ she thought. _All lies!_

She felt the omnipresent sand grate under her feet. Dust hazed the
concourse between her position on the steps and the spaceship a hundred
yards away. The morning sun already had burned off the night chill of
the desert. Heat devils danced over the dun surface of the ship.

Francine ignored the security agent loitering a few steps behind her,
glanced at her wristwatch: nine-twenty. _Hiko will be wondering what's
happened to me_, she thought. _We were supposed to get started by
eight._ Hopelessness gripped her mind. The spaceship looming over the
end of the concourse appeared like a malignant growth--an evil thing
crouched ready to envelope and smother her.

_Could that fool general be right?_ The thought came to her mind
unbidden. She shook her head. _No! He was lying! But why did he want
me to...._ Delayed realization broke off the thought. _They wanted
me to take a small bomb inside the ship, but there was no mention of
my escaping! I'd have had to stay with the cart and the bomb to allay
suspicions. My God! Those beasts expected me to commit suicide for
them! They wanted me to blame the Galactics for Bob's death! They tried
to build a lie in my mind until I'd fall in with their plan. It's hard
enough to die for an ideal, but to give up your life for a lie...._

Anger coursed through her. She stopped on the steps, stood there
shivering. A new feeling of futility replaced the anger. Tears blurred
her vision. _What can one lone woman do against such ruthless schemers?_

Through her tears, she saw movement on the concourse: a man in civilian
clothes crossing from right to left. Her mind registered the movement
with only partial awareness: _man stops, points_. She was suddenly
alert, tears gone, following the direction of the civilian's extended
right arm, hearing his voice shout: "Hey! Look at that!"

A thin needle of an aircraft stitched a hurtling line across the watery
desert sky. It banked, arrowed toward the spaceship. Behind it roared
an airforce jet--delta wings vibrating, sun flashing off polished
metal. Tracers laced out toward the airship.

_Someone's attacking the spaceship!_ she thought. _It's a Russian ICBM!_

But the needle braked abruptly, impossibly, over the spaceship. Behind
it, the airforce jet's engine died, and there was only the eerie
whistling of air burning across its wings.

Gently, the needle lowered itself into a fold of the spaceship.

_It's one of theirs--the Galactics'_ she realized. _Why is it coming
here now? Do they suspect attack? Is that some kind of reinforcement?_

Deprived of its power, the jet staggered, skimmed out to a dust-geyser,
belly-landing in the alkali flats. Sirens screamed as emergency
vehicles raced toward it.

The confused sounds gave Francine a sudden feeling of nausea. She
took a deep breath, and stepped down to the concourse, moving without
conscious determination, her thoughts in a turmoil. The grating sand
beneath her feet was like an emery surface rubbing her nerves. She was
acutely conscious of an acrid, burning odor, and she realized with a
sudden stab of alarm that her security guard still waited behind her on
the steps of the administration building.

Vaguely, she heard voices babbling in the building doorways on both
sides of the concourse--people coming out to stare at the spaceship and
off across the flats where red trucks clustered around the jet.

A pebble had worked its way into her right shoe. Her mind registered
it, rejected an urge to stop and remove the irritant. An idea was
trying to surface in her mind. Momentarily, she was distracted by
a bee humming across her path. Quite inanely her mind dwelt on the
thought that the insect was too commonplace for this moment. A mental
drunkenness made her giddy. She felt both elated and terrified.
_Danger! Yes: terrible danger_, she thought. _Obliteration for the
entire human race. But something_

       *       *       *       *       *

An explosion rocked the concourse, threw her stumbling to her hands
and knees. Sand burned against her palms. Dumb instinct brought her
back to her feet. Another explosion--farther away to the right, behind
the buildings. Bitter smoke swept across the concourse. Abruptly, men
lurched from behind the buildings on the right, slogging through the
sand toward the spaceship.

Civilians! Possibly--and yet they moved with the purposeful unity of
soldiers.

It was like a dream scene to Francine. The men carried weapons. She
stopped, saw the gleam of sunlight on metal, heard the peculiar
crunch-crunch of men running in sand. Through a dreamy haze she
recognized one of the runners: Zakheim. He carried a large black box on
his shoulders. His red hair flamed out in the group like a target.

_The Russians!_ she thought. _They've started their attack! If our
people join them now, it's the end!_

A machinegun stuttered somewhere to her right. Dust puffs walked
across the concourse, swept into the running figures. Men collapsed,
but others still slogged toward the spaceship. An explosion lifted the
leaders, sent them sprawling. Again, the machinegun chattered. Dark
figures lay on the sand like thrown dominoes. But still a few continued
their mad charge.

MP's in American uniforms ran out from between the buildings on the
right. The leaders carried submachineguns.

_We're stopping the attack_, thought Francine. But she knew the change
of tactics did not mean a rejection of violence by Speidel and the
others. It was only a move to keep the Russians from taking the lead.
She clenched her fists, ignored the fact that she stood exposed--a lone
figure in the middle of the concourse. Her senses registered an eerie
feeling of unreality.

Machineguns renewed their chatter and then--abrupt silence. But now
the last of the Russians had fallen. Pursuing MP's staggered. Several
stopped, wrenched at their guns.

Francine's shock gave way to cold rage. She moved forward, slowly at
first and then striding. Off to the left someone shouted: "Hey! Lady!
Get down!" She ignored the voice.

There on the sand ahead was Zakheim's pitiful crumpled figure. A gritty
redness spread around his chest.

Someone ran from between the buildings on her left, waved at her to go
back. _Hiko!_ But she continued her purposeful stride, compelled beyond
any conscious willing to stop. She saw the red-headed figure on the
sand as though she peered down a tunnel.

Part of her mind registered the fact that Hiko stumbled, slowing his
running charge to intercept her. He looked like a man clawing his way
through water.

_Dear Hiko_, she thought. _I have to get to Zak. Poor foolish Zak.
That's what was wrong with him the other day at the conference. He knew
about this attack and was afraid._

Something congealed around her feet, spread upward over her ankles,
quickly surged over her knees. She could see nothing unusual, but it
was as though she had plowed into a pool of molasses. Every step took
terrible effort. The molasses pool moved above her hips, her waist.

_So that's why Hiko and the MP's are moving so slowly_, she thought.
_It's a defensive weapon from the ship. Must be._

Zakheim's sprawled figure was only three steps away from her now. She
wrenched her way through the congealed air, panting with the exertion.
Her muscles ached from the effort. She knelt beside Zakheim. Ignoring
the blood that stained her skirt she took up one of his outstretched
hands, felt for a pulse. Nothing. Now, she recognized the marks on
his jacket. They were bullet holes. A machinegun burst had caught
him across the chest. He was dead. She thought of the big garrulous
red-head, so full of blooming life only minutes before. _Poor foolish
Zak._ She put his hand down gently, shook the tears from her eyes. A
terrible rage swelled in her.

She sensed Ohashi nearby, struggling toward her, heard him gasp: "Is
Zak dead?"

Tears dripped unheeded from her eyes. She nodded. "Yes, he is." And she
thought: _I'm not crying for Zak. I'm crying for myself ... for all of
us ... so foolish, so determined, so blind...._

"EARTH PEOPLE!" The voice roared from the spaceship, cutting across all
thought, stilling all emotion into a waiting fear. "WE HAD HOPED YOU
COULD LEARN TO COMMUNICATE!" roared the voice. "YOU HAVE FAILED!"

Vibrant silence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thoughts that had been struggling for recognition began surging to
the surface of Francine's mind. She felt herself caught in the throes
of a mental earthquake, her soul brought to a crisis as sharp as that
of giving birth. The crashing words had broken through a last barrier
in her mind. "COMMUNICATE!" At last she understood the meaning of the
ultimatum.

But was it too late?

"No!" she screamed. She surged to her feet, shook a fist at the ship.
"Here's one who didn't fail! I know what you meant!" She shook both
fists at the ship. "See my hate!"

Against the almost tangible congealing of air she forced her way toward
the now silent ship, thrust out her left hand toward the dead figures
on the sand all around her. "You killed these poor fools! What did you
expect from them? You did this! You forced them into a corner!"

The doors of the spaceship opened. Five green-skinned figures
emerged. They stopped, stood staring at her, their shoulders slumped.
Simultaneously, Francine felt the thickened air relax its hold upon
her. She strode forward, tears coursing down her cheeks.

"You made them afraid!" she shouted. "What else could they do? The
fearful can't think."

Sobs overcame her. She felt violence shivering in her muscles. There
was a terrible desire in her--a need to get her hands on those green
figures, to shake them, hurt them. "I hope you're proud of what you've
done."

"QUIET!" boomed the voice from the ship.

"I will not!" she screamed. She shook her head, feeling the wildness
that smothered her inhibitions. "Oh, I know you were right about
communicating ... but you were wrong, too. You didn't have to resort to
violence."

The voice from the ship intruded on a softer tone, all the more
compelling for the change: "Please?" There was a delicate sense of
pleading to the word.

Francine broke off. She felt that she had just awakened from a lifelong
daze, but that this clarity of thought-cum-action was a delicate thing
she could lose in the wink of an eye.

"We did what we had to do," said the voice. "You see our five
representatives there?"

Francine focused on the slump-shouldered Galactics. They looked
defeated, radiating sadness. The gaping door of the ship a few paces
behind was like a mouth ready to swallow them.

"Those five are among the eight hundred survivors of a race that once
numbered six billion," said the voice.

Francine felt Ohashi move up beside her, glanced sidelong at him, then
back to the Galactics. Behind her, she heard a low mumbling murmur of
many voices. The slow beginning of reaction to her emotional outburst
made her sway. A sob caught in her throat.

The voice from the ship rolled on: "This once great race did not
realize the importance of unmistakable communication. They entered
space in that sick condition--hating, fearing, fighting. There was
appalling bloodshed on their side and--ours--before we could subdue
them."

A scuffing sound intruded as the five green-skinned figures shuffled
forward. They were trembling, and Francine saw glistening drops of
wetness below their crests. Their eyes blinked. She sensed the aura of
sadness about them, and new tears welled in her eyes.

"The eight hundred survivors--to atone for the errors of their race
and to earn the right of further survival--developed a new language,"
said the voice from the ship. "It is, perhaps, the ultimate language.
They have made themselves the masters of all languages to serve as our
interpreters." There was a long pause, then: "Think very carefully,
Mrs. Millar. Do you know why they are our interpreters?"

The held breath of silence hung over them. Francine swallowed past the
thick tightness in her throat. This was the moment that could spell the
end of the human race, or could open new doors for them--and she knew
it.

"Because they cannot lie," she husked.

"Then you have truly learned," said the voice. "My original purpose
in coming down here just now was to direct the sterilization of your
planet. We thought that your military preparations were a final
evidence of your failure. We see now that this was merely the abortive
desperation of a minority. We have acted in haste. Our apologies."

       *       *       *       *       *

The green-skinned Galactics shuffled forward, stopped two paces from
Francine. Their ridged crests drooped, shoulders sagged.

"Slay us," croaked one. His eyes turned toward the dead men on the sand
around them.

Francine took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped at her damp eyes. Again
she felt the bottomless sense of futility. "Did it have to be this
way?" she whispered.

The voice from the ship answered: "Better this than a sterile
planet--the complete destruction of your race. Do not blame our
interpreters. If a race can learn to communicate, it can be saved. Your
race can be saved. First we had to make certain you held the potential.
There will be pain in the new ways, no doubt. Many still will try to
fight us, but you have not yet erupted fully into space where it would
be more difficult to control your course."

"Why couldn't you have just picked some of us, tested a few of us?" she
demanded. "Why did you put this terrible pressure on the entire world?"

"What if we had picked the wrong ones?" asked the voice. "How could
we be certain with a strange race such as yours that we had a fair
sampling of your highest potential? No. All of you had to have the
opportunity to learn of our problem. The pressure was to be certain
that your own people chose their best representatives."

Francine thought of the unimaginative rule-book followers who had led
the teams. She felt hysteria close to the surface.

_So close. So hellishly close!_

Ohashi spoke softly beside her: "Francine?"

It was a calming voice that subdued the hysteria. She nodded. A
feeling of relief struggled for recognition within her, but it had not
penetrated all nerve channels. She felt her hands twitching.

Ohashi said: "They are speaking English with you. What of their
language that we were supposed to solve?"

"We leaped to a wrong conclusion, Hiko," she said. "We were asked
to communicate. We were supposed to remember our own language--the
language we knew in childhood, and that was slowly lost to us through
the elevation of reason."

"Ahhhhh," sighed Ohashi.

All anger drained from her now, and she spoke with sadness. "We raised
the power of reason, the power of manipulating words, above all other
faculties. The written word became our god. We forgot that before words
there were actions--that there have always been things beyond words. We
forgot that the spoken word preceded the written one. We forgot that
the written forms of our letters came from ideographic pictures--that
standing behind every letter is an image like an ancient ghost. The
image stands for natural movements of the body or of other living
things."

"The dances," whispered Ohashi.

"Yes, the dances," she said. "The primitive dances did not forget. And
the body did not forget--not really." She lifted her hands, looked at
them. "I am my own past. Every incident that ever happened to every
ancestor of mine is accumulated within me." She turned, faced Ohashi.

He frowned. "Memory stops at the beginning of your...."

"And the body remembers beyond," she said. "It's a different kind of
memory: encysted in an overlay of trained responses like the thing
we call language. We have to look back to our childhood because all
children are primitives. Every cell of a child knows the language of
emotional movements--the clutching reflexes, the wails and contortions,
the sensuous twistings, the gentle reassurances."

"And you say these people cannot lie," murmured Ohashi.

Francine felt the upsurge of happiness. It was still tainted by the
death around her and the pain she knew was yet to come for her people,
but the glow was there expanding. "The body," she said, and shook her
head at the scowl of puzzlement on Ohashi's face. "The intellect...."
She broke off, aware that Ohashi had not yet made the complete
transition to the new way of communicating, that she was still most
likely the only member of her race even aware of the vision on this
high plateau of being.

       *       *       *       *       *

Ohashi shook his head and sunlight flashed on his glasses. "I'm trying
to understand," he said.

"I know you are," she said. "Hiko, all of our Earth languages have a
bias toward insanity because they split off the concept of intellect
from the concept of body. That's an over-simplification, but it will do
for now. You get fragmentation this way, you see? Schizophrenia. These
people now--" She gestured toward the silent Galactics. "--they have
reunited body and intellect in their communication. A gestalten thing
that requires the total being's participation. They cannot lie because
that would be to lie to themselves--and this would completely inhibit
speech." She shook her head. "Speech is not the word, but it is the
only word we have now."

"A paradox," said Ohashi.

She nodded. "The self that is one cannot lie to the self. When body
and intellect say the same thing ... that is truth. When words and
wordlessness agree ... that is truth. You see?"

Ohashi stood frozen before her, eyes glistening behind the thick
lenses. He opened his mouth, closed it, then bowed his head. In that
moment he was the complete Oriental and Francine felt that she could
look through him at all of his ancestry, seeing and understanding every
culture and every person that had built to the point of the pyramid
here in one person: Hiko Ohashi.

"I see it," he murmured. "It was example they showed. Not words to
decipher. Only example for recognition, to touch our memories and call
them forth. What great teachers! What great masters of being!"

One of the Galactics stepped closer, gestured toward the area behind
Francine. His movements and the intent were clear to her, interpreted
through her new understanding.

The Galactic's wide lips moved. "You are being recorded," he said.
"It would be an opportune moment to begin the education of your
people--since all new things must have a point of birth."

She nodded, steeling herself before turning. _Even with the pain of
birth_, she thought. This was the moment that would precipitate the
avalanche of change. Without knowing precisely how she would set off
this chain reaction, she had no doubt that she would do it. Slowly,
she turned, saw the movie cameras, the television lenses, the cone
microphones all directed at her. People were pressed up against an
invisible wall that drew an arc around the ship's entrance and this
charmed circle where she stood. _Part of the ship's defenses_, she
thought. _A force field to stop intruders._

A muted murmuring came from the wall of people.

Francine stepped toward them, saw the lenses and microphones adjust.
She focused on angry faces beyond the force field--and faces with
fear--and faces with nothing but a terrible awe. In the foreground,
well within the field, lay Zakheim's body, one hand outstretched and
almost pointing at her. Silently, she dedicated this moment to him.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Listen to me very carefully," she said. "But more important, see
beyond my words to the place where words cannot penetrate." She felt
her body begin to tingle with a sudden release of energy. Briefly, she
raised herself onto her toes. "If you see the truth of my message, if
you see through to this place that I show you, then you will enter a
higher order of existence: happier, sadder. Everything will take on
more depth. You will feel more of all the things there are in this
universe for us to feel."

Her new-found knowledge was like a shoring up within, a bottomless well
of strength.

"All the window widows of all the lonely homes of Earth am I," she
said. And she bent forward. It was suddenly not Dr. Francine Millar,
psychologist, there on the sand. By the power of mimesis, she projected
the figure of a woman in a housedress leaning on a windowsill, staring
hopelessly into an empty future.

"And all the happy innocence seeking pain."

Again, she moved: the years peeled away from her. And now, she picked
up a subtle rhythm of words and movements that made experienced actors
cry with envy when they saw the films.

"Nature building Nature's thunder am I," she chanted, her body swaying.

"Red roses budding

"And the trout thudding water

"And the moon pounding out stars

"On an ocean wake--

"All these am I!

"A fast hurling motion am I!

"What you think I am--that I am not!

"Dreams tell your senses all my names:

"Not harshly loud or suddenly neglectful, sarcastic, preoccupied or
rebukeful--

"But murmuring.

"You abandoned a twelve-hour day for a twelve-hour night

"To meddle carefully with eternity!

"Then you realize the cutting hesitancy

"That prepares a star for wishing....

"When you see my proper image--

"A candle flickering am I.

"Then you will feel the lonely intercourse of the stars.

"Remember! Remember! Remember!"


                                THE END






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