Naudsonce | Page 7

Not the meaning we intend, but some meaning. When Paul
made the gobbledygook speech, they all reacted in the same
way--frightened, and then defensive. The you-me routine simply
bewildered them, as we'd be at a set of semantically lucid but
self-contradictory statements. When Lillian tried to introduce herself,
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 Mark explaining that
steel knives were dangerously sharp; they got the demonstration, but
when he tried to tie words onto it, it threw them completely."
"ALL RIGHT. Pass that," Loughran conceded. "But if they have

telepathy, why do they use spoken words?"
"Oh, I can answer that," Anna said. "Say they communicated by speech
originally, and developed their telepathic faculty slowly and without
realizing it. They'd go on using speech, and since the message would be
received telepathically ahead of the spoken message, nobody would
pay any attention to the words as such. Everybody would have a
spoken language of his own; it would be sort of the instrumental
accompaniment 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, or in
group-danger situations, telepathy would be a race-survival
characteristic. It would be selected for genetically, and the non-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 emerged
from savagery, or an old, stagnant race. All indications seem to favor
the latter. A young race would not have time to develop telepathy as
Anna suggests. An old race would have gone much farther than these
people have. Progress is a matter of communication and pooling ideas
and discoveries. Make a trend-graph of technological progress on Terra;
every big jump comes after an improvement in communications. The
printing press; railways and steamships; the telegraph; radio. Then
think how telepathy would speed up progress."
* * * * *
The sun was barely past noon meridian before the Svants, who had
ventured down into the fields at sunrise, were returning to the
mound-village. In the snooper-screen, they could be seen coming up in
tunics and breechclouts, entering houses, and emerging in long robes.
There seemed to be no bows or spears in evidence, but the big horn
sounded occasionally. Paul Meillard was pleased. Even if it had been
by sign-talk, which he rated with worm-fishing for trout or shooting

sitting rabbits, he had gotten something across to them.
When they went to the village, at 1500, they had trouble getting their
lorry down. A couple of Marines in a jeep had to go in first to get the
crowd out of the way. Several of the locals, including the one with the
staff, joined with them; this quick co-operation delighted Meillard.
When they had the lorry down and were all out of it, the dignitary with
the staff, his scarlet tablecloth over his yellow robe, began an oration,
apparently with every confidence that 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 told
Meillard. "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 henchmen
advanced. 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 they ought
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 go
wrong would go wrong. Lillian used a word; it was not a ladylike word
at all. The Svants looked at them as though wondering what could
possibly be the matter. Then they went into a huddle, arguing

vehemently. The argument spread, like a ripple in a pool; soon
everybody was twittering vocally or blowing on flutes and Panpipes.
Then the big horn started blaring. Immediately, Gofredo snatched the
hand-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 spoke again
into the phone, then called over his shoulder: "Rienet; three one-second