"Ummmm." Jonathan leaned over and kissed her briefly. "I've got a new
line of attack," he said, picking up his coffee. He patted his wife's
shoulder. "If things work out well, we might get away on that vacation
sooner than we thought."
"Really?" she asked, brightening.
"Really." He left the table and went back to his den.
Putting the next tape on the machine, he settled down to his job. Time
passed and finally there were no more tapes to listen to.
He stacked his notes and began making lists, checking through the
sheets of paper for repetitions of words Easton had used, listing the
various connotations which had occurred to Jonathan while he had
listened to the tapes.
As he worked, he was struck by the similarity of the words he was
recording to the occasional bits of double-talk he had heard used by
comedians in theaters and on the air, and he allowed his mind to
wander a bit, exploring the possibilities.
Was Martian actually such a close relative to English? Or had the
Martians learned English from Easton, and had Easton then formed a
sort of pidgin-English-Martian of his own?
Jonathan found it difficult to believe in the coincidence of the two
languages being alike, unless--
He laughed. Unless, of course, Earthmen were descended from Martians,
or vice versa. Oh, well, not my problem, he thought jauntily.
* * * * *
He stared at the list before him and then he started to swear, softly
at first, then louder. But no matter how loudly he swore, the list
remained undeniably and obstinately the same: