The Project Gutenberg eBook ofTry to remember!This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: Try to remember!Author: Frank HerbertIllustrator: Virgil FinlayRelease date: May 10, 2024 [eBook #73595]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1961Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRY TO REMEMBER! ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Try to remember!Author: Frank HerbertIllustrator: Virgil FinlayRelease date: May 10, 2024 [eBook #73595]Language: EnglishOriginal publication: New York, NY: Ziff-Davis Publishing Company, 1961Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: Try to remember!
Author: Frank HerbertIllustrator: Virgil Finlay
Author: Frank Herbert
Illustrator: Virgil Finlay
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 HERBERTIllustrated by FINLAYThe 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 fromAmazing Stories October 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
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.
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 fromAmazing Stories October 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe 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 hadflappedout 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'sOregon 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 thatwecommunicate withthem? 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 arenotall 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 doyouknow 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 amverysorry," 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 therealmeaning 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 wecananswer it with our present faculties."
"Ifthey 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 forthem," said Goré.
"Note the phraseology of their ultimatum," said Ohashi. "Theysubmita problem. Theyopentheir rooms to us. They areavailableto us. Theyregrettheir 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 thefaceof 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 howanimalswould 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. "SomeNodancers, 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 thewaysyou 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 onthingsrather 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 youhavefound exact points of comparison, that means nothing," said Langsmith. "These arealiens... 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 thespeechorgans to imitatebodilygestures?"
"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 enoughbeating the enemyhas 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 amnot! 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 aflexionallanguage 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 aboutthis."
"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....