a language," Anna de Jong declared. "No sapientthought is possible without verbalization."
"Well, no society like that is possible without some means ofcommunication," Karl Dorver supported her from the other flank.He seemed to have made that point before. "You know," he added,"I'm beginning to wonder if it mightn't be telepathy."
He evidently hadn't suggested that before. The others looked athim in surprise. Anna started to say, "Oh, I doubt if--" and thenstopped.
"I know, the race of telepaths is an old gimmick that's been used innew-planet adventure stories for centuries, but maybe we've finallyfound one."
"I don't like it, Karl," Loughran said. "If they're telepaths, whydon't they understand us? And if they're telepaths, why do they talkat all? And you can't convince me that this boodly-oodly-doodle oftheirs isn't talking."
"Well, our neural structure and theirs won't be nearly alike,"Fayon said. "I know, this analogy between telepathy and radiois full of holes, but it's good enough for this. Our wave lengthcan't be picked up with their sets."
"The deuce it can't," Gofredo contradicted. "I've been botheredabout that from the beginning. These people act as though they gotmeaning from us. Not the meaning we intend, but some meaning. WhenPaul made the gobbledygook speech, they all reacted in the sameway--frightened, and then defensive. The you-me routine simplybewildered them, as we'd be at a set of semantically lucid butself-contradictory statements. When Lillian tried to introduceherself, they were shocked and horrified...."
"It looked to me like actual physical disgust," Anna interpolated.
"When I tried it, they acted like a lot of puppies being petted,and when Mark tried it, they were simply baffled. I watched Markexplaining that steel knives were dangerously sharp; they got thedemonstration, but when he tried to tie words onto it, it threwthem completely."
"ALL RIGHT. Pass that," Loughran conceded. "But if they havetelepathy, why do they use spoken words?"
"Oh, I can answer that," Anna said. "Say they communicated by speechoriginally, and developed their telepathic faculty slowly and withoutrealizing it. They'd go on using speech, and since the message wouldbe received telepathically ahead of the spoken message, nobody wouldpay any attention to the words as such. Everybody would have a spokenlanguage of his own; it would be sort of the instrumentalaccompaniment to the song."
"Some of them don't bother speaking," Karl nodded. "They just toot."
"I'll buy that, right away," Loughran agreed. "In mating, orin group-danger situations, telepathy would be a race-survivalcharacteristic. It would be selected for genetically, and thenon-gifted strains would tend to die out."
It wouldn't do. It wouldn't do at all. He said so.
"Look at their technology. We either have a young race, just emergedfrom savagery, or an old, stagnant race. All indications seem tofavor the latter. A young race would not have time to developtelepathy as Anna suggests. An old race would have gone much fartherthan these people have. Progress is a matter of communication andpooling ideas and discoveries. Make a trend-graph of technologicalprogress on Terra; every big jump comes after an improvement incommunications. The printing press; railways and steamships; thetelegraph; radio. Then think how telepathy would speed up progress."
* * * * *
The sun was barely past noon meridian before the Svants, who hadventured down into the fields at sunrise, were returning to themound-village. In the snooper-screen, they could be seen coming upin tunics and breechclouts, entering houses, and emerging in longrobes. There seemed to be no bows or spears in evidence, but the bighorn sounded occasionally. Paul Meillard was pleased. Even if it hadbeen by sign-talk, which he rated with worm-fishing for trout orshooting sitting rabbits, he had gotten something across to them.
When they went to the village, at 1500, they had trouble gettingtheir lorry down. A couple of Marines in a jeep had to go in firstto get the crowd out of the way. Several of the locals, includingthe one with the staff, joined with them; this quick co-operationdelighted Meillard. When they had the lorry down and were all outof it, the dignitary with the staff, his scarlet tablecloth overhis yellow robe, began an oration, apparently with every confidencethat he was being understood. In spite of his objections at lunch,the telepathy theory was beginning to seem more persuasive.
"Give them the Shooting of Dan McJabberwock again," he toldMeillard. "This is where we came in yesterday."
Something Meillard had noticed was exciting him. "Wait a moment.They're going to do something."
They were indeed. The one with the staff and three of his henchmenadvanced. The staff bearer touched himself on the brow. "_Fwoonk_,"he said. Then he pointed to Meillard. "_Hoonkle_," he said.
"They got it!" Lillian was hugging herself joyfully. "I knew theyought to!"
Meillard indicated himself and said, "_Fwoonk_."
That wasn't right. The village elder immediately corrected him.The word, it seemed, was, "_Fwoonk_."
His three companions agreed that that was the word for self,but that was as far as the agreement went. They rendered it,respectively, as "_Pwink_," "_Tweelt_" and "_Kroosh_."
Gofredo gave a barking laugh. He was right; anything that could gowrong would go wrong. Lillian used a word; it was not a ladylikeword at all. The Svants looked at them as though wondering whatcould possibly be the matter. Then they went into a huddle, arguingvehemently. The argument spread, like a ripple in a pool; sooneverybody was twittering vocally or blowing on flutes and Panpipes.Then the big horn started blaring. Immediately, Gofredo snatched thehand-phone of his belt radio and began speaking urgently into it.
"What are you doing, Luis?" Meillard asked anxiously.
"Calling the reserve in. I'm not taking chances on this." He spokeagain into the phone, then called over his shoulder: "Rienet; threeone-second bursts, in the air!"
A Marine pointed a submachine gun skyward and ripped off a string ofshots, then another, and another. There was silence after the firstburst. Then a frightful howling arose.
"Luis, you imbecile!" Meillard was shouting.
Gofredo jumped onto the top of an airjeep, where they could allsee him; drawing his pistol, he fired twice into the air.
"Be quiet, all of you!" he shouted, as though that would do any good.
It did. Silence fell, bounced noisily, and then settled over thecrowd. Gofredo went on talking to them: "Take it easy, now; easy."He might have been speaking to a frightened dog or a fractioushorse. "Nobody's going to hurt you. This is nothing but the greatnoise-magic of the Terrans...."
"Get the presents unloaded," Meillard was saying. "Make a big showof it. The table first."
The horn, which had started, stopped blowing. As they were gettingoff the long table and piling it with trade goods, another lorrycame in, disgorging twenty Marine riflemen. They had their bayonetsfixed; the natives looked apprehensively at the bare steel, butwent on listening to Gofredo. Meillard pulled the (Lord Mayor?Archbishop? Lord of the Manor?) aside, and began making sign-talkto him.
When quiet was restored, Howell put a pick and shovel into awheelbarrow and pushed them out into the space that had been clearedin front of the table. He swung the pick for a while, then shoveledthe barrow full of ground. After pushing it around for a while, hedumped it back in the hole and leveled it off. Two Marines broughtout an eight-inch log and chopped a couple of billets off it withan ax, then cut off another with one of the saws, split them up,and filled the wheelbarrow with the firewood.
_We can't use the computer till we can tell it whatthe data is data about!_]
The knives, jewelry and other small items would be no problem; theyhad enough of them to go around. The other stuff would be harder todistribute, and Paul Meillard and Karl Dorver were arguing about howto handle it. If they weren't careful, a lot of new bowie kniveswould get bloodied.
"Have them form a queue," Anna suggested. "That will give them theidea of equal sharing, and we'll be able to learn something abouttheir status levels and social hierarchy and agonist
ic relations."
* * * * *
The one with the staff took it as a matter of course that he wouldgo first; his associates began falling in behind him, and the restof the villagers behind them. Whether they'd gotten one the daybefore or not, everybody was given a knife and a bandanna and onepiece of flashy junk-jewelry, also a stainless steel cup and messplate, a bucket, and an empty bottle with a cork. The women didn'tcarry sheath knives, so they got Boy Scout knives on lanyards. Theywere all lavishly supplied with Extee Three and candy. Any of