Missing Link | Page 8

I started working on it.

The most likely answer was that it had been adopted from another
language, and meant enemy."
"And that told you where the Delphinus was?"
"No. But it fitted my hunch about these Gienahns. I'd kind of felt from
the first minute of meeting them that they had a culture like the Indians
of ancient Terra."
"Why?"
"They came in like a primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right
onto the hood of my sled. An act of bravery, no less. Counting coup,
you see?"
"I guess so."
"Then he said he was High Path Chief. That wasn't on the language list,
either. But it was easy: Raider Chief. There's a word in almost every
language in history that means raider and derives from a word for road,
path or highway."
"Highwaymen," said Stetson.
"Raid itself," said Orne. "An ancient Terran language corruption of
road."
"Yeah, yeah. But where'd all this translation griff put--"
"Don't be impatient. Glass-blowing culture meant they were just out of
the primitive stage. That, we could control. Next, he said their moon
was Chiranachuruso, translated as The Limb of Victory. After that it
just fell into place."
"How?"
"The vertical-slit pupils of their eyes. Doesn't that mean anything to
you?"

"Maybe. What's it mean to you?"
"Night-hunting predator accustomed to dropping upon its victims from
above. No other type of creature ever has had the vertical slit. And
Tanub said himself that the Delphinus was hidden in the best place in
all of their history. History? That'd be a high place. Dark, likewise.
Ergo: a high place on the darkside of their moon."
"I'm a pie-eyed greepus," whispered Stetson.
Orne grinned, said: "You probably are ... sir."
THE END

Transcriber's Notes: The table below lists all corrections applied to the
original text.
p. 102: [normalized] ComGo -> ComGO p. 103: net of snakers ->
sneakers p. 105: [removed extra quote] "Orne swallowed p. 111: [added
closing quote] "A glass-blowing culture,"

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Missing Link, by Frank Patrick
Herbert
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MISSING
LINK ***
***** This file should be named 23210.txt or 23210.zip ***** This
and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/3/2/1/23210/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Markus Brenner and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be
renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, set
forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to copying
and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the
PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge
for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you do not
charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the rules is
very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as
creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. They
may be modified and printed and given away--you may do practically
ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is subject to
the trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE PLEASE READ
THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work (or
any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all the
terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy all

copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. If
you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be used
on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms