Omnilingual | Page 6

years before the end. It might have been a thousand years before the time they died out
completely that such activities as publishing ended."
"Well, look where I found it; in a closet in a cellar. Tossed in there and forgotten, and
then ignored when they were stripping the building. Things like that happen."
Penrose had picked up the title page and was looking at it.
"I don't think there's any doubt about this being a magazine, at all." He looked again at
the title, his lips moving silently. "Mastharnorvod Tadavas Sornhulva. Wonder what it
means. But you're right about the date--Doma seems to be the name of a month. Yes, you
have a word, Dr. Dane."
Sid Chamberlain, seeing that something unusual was going on, had come over from the
table at which he was working. After examining the title page and some of the inside
pages, he began whispering into the stenophone he had taken from his belt.
"Don't try to blow this up to anything big, Sid," she cautioned. "All we have is the name

of a month, and Lord only knows how long it'll be till we even find out which month it
was."
"Well, it's a start, isn't it?" Penrose argued. "Grotefend only had the word for 'king' when
he started reading Persian cuneiform."
"But I don't have the word for month; just the name of a month. Everybody knew the
names of the Persian kings, long before Grotefend."
"That's not the story," Chamberlain said. "What the public back on Terra will be
interested in is finding out that the Martians published magazines, just like we do.
Something familiar; make the Martians seem more real. More human."
* * * * *
Three men had come in, and were removing their masks and helmets and oxy-tanks, and
peeling out of their quilted coveralls. Two were Space Force lieutenants; the third was a
youngish civilian with close-cropped blond hair, in a checked woolen shirt. Tony
Lattimer and his helpers.
"Don't tell me Martha finally got something out of that stuff?" he asked, approaching the
table. He might have been commenting on the antics of the village half-wit, from his
tone.
"Yes; the name of one of the Martian months." Hubert Penrose went on to explain,
showing the photostat.
Tony Lattimer took it, glanced at it, and dropped it on the table.
"Sounds plausible, of course, but just an assumption. That word may not be the name of a
month, at all--could mean 'published' or 'authorized' or 'copyrighted' or anything like that.
Fact is, I don't think it's more than a wild guess that that thing's anything like a
periodical." He dismissed the subject and turned to Penrose. "I picked out the next
building to enter; that tall one with the conical thing on top. It ought to be in pretty good
shape inside; the conical top wouldn't allow dust to accumulate, and from the outside
nothing seems to be caved in or crushed. Ground level's higher than the other one, about
the seventh floor. I found a good place and drilled for the shots; tomorrow I'll blast a hole
in it, and if you can spare some people to help, we can start exploring it right away."
"Yes, of course, Dr. Lattimer. I can spare about a dozen, and I suppose you can find a few
civilian volunteers," Penrose told him. "What will you need in the way of equipment?"
"Oh, about six demolition-packets; they can all be shot together. And the usual thing in
the way of lights, and breaking and digging tools, and climbing equipment in case we run
into broken or doubtful stairways. We'll divide into two parties. Nothing ought to be
entered for the first time without a qualified archaeologist along. Three parties, if Martha
can tear herself away from this catalogue of systematized incomprehensibilities she's
making long enough to do some real work."

She felt her chest tighten and her face become stiff. She was pressing her lips together to
lock in a furious retort when Hubert Penrose answered for her.
"Dr. Dane's been doing as much work, and as important work, as you have," he said
brusquely. "More important work, I'd be inclined to say."
Von Ohlmhorst was visibly distressed; he glanced once toward Sid Chamberlain, then
looked hastily away from him. Afraid of a story of dissension among archaeologists
getting out.
"Working out a system of pronunciation by which the Martian language could be
transliterated was a most important contribution," he said. "And Martha did that almost
unassisted."
"Unassisted by Dr. Lattimer, anyway," Penrose added. "Captain Field and Lieutenant
Koremitsu did some work, and I helped out a little, but nine-tenths of it she did herself."
"Purely arbitrary," Lattimer disdained. "Why, we don't even know that the Martians could
make the