"If there actually were communication in the sounds these Galactics
make, you know we'd have found it by now," said Langsmith. "You know
it!"
She spoke in sudden anger: "I don't know it! In fact, I feel that we're
on the verge of solving their language with this new approach we've
been working on."
"Oh, come now!" said Speidel. "Do you mean that after our finest
cryptographers have worked over this thing for seven months, you
disagree with them entirely?"
"No, no, let her say her piece," said Langsmith.
"We've tapped a new source of information in attacking this problem,"
she said. "Primitive dances."
"Dances?" Speidel looked shocked.
"Yes. I think the Galactics' gestures may be their adjectives and
adverbs--the full emotional content of their language."
"Emotion!" snapped Speidel. "Emotion isn't language!"
She repressed a surge of anger, said: "We're dealing with something
completely outside our previous experience. We have to discard old
ideas. We know that the habits of a native tongue set up a person's
speaking responses. In fact, you can define language as the system of
habits you reveal when you speak."
* * * * *
Speidel tapped his fingers on the table, stared at the door behind
Francine.
She ignored his nervous distraction, said: "The Galactics use almost
the full range of implosive and glottal stops with a wide selection of
vowel sounds: fricatives, plosives, voiced and unvoiced. And we note
an apparent lack of the usual interfering habits you find in normal
speech."
"This isn't normal speech!" blurted Speidel. "Those are nonsense
sounds!" He shook his head. "Emotions!"
"All right," she said. "Emotions! We're pretty certain that language
begins with emotions--pure emotional actions. The baby pushes away the
plate of unwanted food."
"You're wasting our time!" barked Speidel.
"I didn't ask to come down here," she said.
"Please." Langsmith put a hand on Speidel's arm. "Let Dr. Millar have
her say."
"Emotion," muttered Speidel.
"Every spoken language of earth has migrated away from emotion," said
Francine.
"Can you write an emotion on paper?" demanded Speidel.
"That does it," she said. "That really tears it! You're blind! You say
language has to be written down. That's part of the magic! You're mind
is tied in little knots by academic tradition! Language, General, is
primarily oral! People like you, though, want to make it into ritual
noise!"
"I didn't come down here for an egg-head argument!" snapped Speidel.
"Let me handle this, please," said Langsmith. He made a mollifying
gesture toward Francine. "Please continue."
She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I snapped," she said. She smiled. "I
think we let emotion get the best of us."
Speidel frowned.
"I was talking about language moving away from emotion," she said.
"Take Japanese, for example. Instead of saying, 'Thank you' they say,
'Katajikenai'--'I am insulted.' Or they say, 'Kino doku' which means
'This poisonous feeling!'" She held up her hands. "This is ritual
exclusion of showing emotion. Our Indo-European languages--especially
Anglo-Saxon tongues--are moving the same way. We seem to think that
emotion isn't quite nice, that...."
"It tells you nothing!" barked Speidel.
She forced down the anger that threatened to overwhelm her. "If you
can read the emotional signs," she said, "they reveal if a speaker is
telling the truth. That's all, General. They just tell you if you're
getting at the truth. Any good psychologist knows this, General.
Freud said it: 'If you try to conceal your feelings, every pore oozes
betrayal.' You seem to think that the opposite is true."
"Emotions! Dancing!" Speidel pushed his chair back. "Smitty, I've had
as much of this as I can take."
"Just a minute," said Langsmith. "Now, Dr. Millar, I wanted you to
have your say because we've already considered these points. Long ago.
You're interested in the gestures. You say this is a dance of emotions.
Other experts say with equal emphasis that these gestures are ritual
combat! Freud, indeed! They ooze betrayal. This chopping gesture they
make with the right hand"--he chopped the air in illustration--"is
identical to the karate or judo chop for breaking the human neck!"
Francine shook her head, put a hand to her throat. She was momentarily
overcome by a feeling of uncertainty.
Langsmith said: "That outward thrust they make with one hand: that's
the motion of a sword being shoved into an opponent! They ooze betrayal
all right!"
She looked from Langsmith to Speidel, back to Langsmith. A man to her
right cleared his throat.
Langsmith said: "I've just given you two examples. We have hundreds
more. Every analysis we've made has come up with the same answer:
treachery! The pattern's as old as time: offer a reward; pretend
friendship; get the innocent lamb's attention on your empty hand while
you poise the ax in your other hand!"
* * * * *
Could I be wrong? she wondered. _Have we been duped by these
Galactics?_ Her lips trembled. She fought to control them, whispered:
"Why are you telling me these things?"
"Aren't you at all interested in revenge against the creatures who
murdered your husband?" asked Speidel.
"I don't know that they murdered him!" She blinked back tears. "You're
trying to confuse me!" And a favorite saying of her husband's came into
her mind: "_A conference is a group of people making a difficult job
out of what one person could do easily._" The room suddenly seemed too
close and oppressive.
"Why have I been dragged into this conference?" she demanded. "Why?"
"We were hoping you'd assist us in capturing that space ship," said
Langsmith.
"Me? Assist you in...."
"Someone has to get a bomb past the force screens at the door--the
ones that keep sand and dirt out of the ship. We've got to have a bomb
inside."
"But why me?"
"They're used to seeing you wheel in the master recorder on that cart,"
said Langsmith. "We thought of putting a bomb in...."
"No!"
"This has gone far enough," said Speidel. He took a deep breath,
started to rise.
"Wait," said Langsmith.
"She obviously has no feelings of patriotic responsibility," said
Speidel. "We're wasting our time."
Langsmith said: "The Galactics are used to seeing her with that cart.
If we change now, they're liable to become suspicious."
"We'll set up some other plan, then," said Speidel. "As far as I'm
concerned, we can write off any possibility of further cooperation from
her."
"You're little boys playing a game," said Francine. "This isn't an
exclusive American problem. This is a human problem that involves every
nation on Earth."
"That ship is on United States soil," said Speidel.
"Which happens to be on the only planet controlled by the human
species," she said. "We ought to be sharing everything with the
other teams, pooling information and ideas to get at every scrap of
knowledge."
"We'd all like to be idealists," said Speidel. "But there's no room for
idealism where our survival is concerned. These _frogs_ have full space
travel, apparently between the stars--not just satellites and moon
rockets. If we get their ship we can enforce peace on our own terms."
"National survival," she said. "But it's our survival as a species
that's at stake!"
Speidel turned to Langsmith. "This is one of your more spectacular
failures, Smitty. We'll have to put her under close surveillance."
Langsmith puffed furiously on his pipe. A cloud of pale blue smoke
screened his head. "I'm ashamed of you, Dr. Millar," he said.
She jumped to her feet, allowing her anger full scope at last. "You
must think I'm a rotten psychologist!" she snapped. "You've been lying
to me since I set foot in here!" She shot a bitter glance at Speidel.
"Your gestures gave you away! The non-communicative emotional gestures,
General!"
"What's she talking about?" demanded Speidel.
"You said different things with your mouths than you said with your
bodies," she explained. "That means you were lying to me--concealing
something vital you didn't want me to know about."
"She's insane!" barked Speidel.
"There wasn't any survivor of a plane crash in Ceylon," she said.
"There probably wasn't even the plane crash you described."
Speidel froze to sudden stillness, spoke through thin lips: "Has there
been a security leak? Good Lord!"
"Look at Dr. Langsmith there!" she said. "Hiding behind that pipe! And
you, General: moving your mouth no more than absolutely necessary to
speak--trying to hide your real feelings! Oozing betrayal!"
"Get her out of here!" barked Speidel.
"You're all logic and no intuition!" she shouted. "No understanding of
feeling and art! Well, General: go back to your computers, but remember
this--You can't build a machine that thinks like a man! You can't
feed emotion into an electronic computer and get back anything except
numbers! Logic, to you, General!"
"I said get her out of here!" shouted Speidel. He rose half out of
his chair, turned to Langsmith who sat in pale silence. "And I want a
thorough investigation! I want to know where the security leak was that
put her wise to our plans."
"Watch yourself!" snapped Langsmith.
Speidel took two deep breaths, sank back.
_They're insane_, thought Francine. _Insane and pushed into a corner.
With that kind of fragmentation they could slip into catatonia or
violence._ She felt weak and afraid.
Others around the table had arisen. Two civilians moved up beside
Francine. "Shall we lock her up, General?" asked one.
Speidel hesitated.
Langsmith spoke first: "No. Just keep her under very close
surveillance. If we locked her up it would arouse questions that we
don't want to answer."
Speidel glowered at Francine. "If you give us away, I'll have you
shot!" He motioned to have her taken out of the room.
* * * * *
When she emerged from the headquarters building, Francine's mind still
whirled. _Lies!_ she thought. _All lies!_
She felt the omnipresent sand grate under her feet. Dust hazed the
concourse between her position on the steps and the spaceship a hundred
yards away. The morning sun already had burned off the night chill of
the desert. Heat devils danced over the dun surface of the ship.
Francine ignored the security agent loitering a few steps behind her,
glanced at her wristwatch: nine-twenty. _Hiko will be wondering what's
happened to me_, she thought. _We were supposed to get started by
eight._ Hopelessness gripped her mind. The spaceship looming over the
end of the concourse appeared like a malignant growth--an evil thing
crouched ready to envelope and smother her.
_Could that fool general be right?_ The thought came to her mind
unbidden. She shook her head. _No! He was lying! But why did he want
me to...._ Delayed realization broke off the thought. _They wanted
me to take a small bomb inside the ship, but there was no mention of
my escaping! I'd have had to stay with the cart and the bomb to allay
suspicions. My God! Those beasts expected me to commit suicide for
them! They wanted me to blame the Galactics for Bob's death! They tried
to build a lie in my mind until I'd fall in with their plan. It's hard
enough to die for an ideal, but to give up your life for a lie...._
Anger coursed through her. She stopped on the steps, stood there
shivering. A new feeling of futility replaced the anger. Tears blurred
her vision. _What can one lone woman do against such ruthless schemers?_
Through her tears, she saw movement on the concourse: a man in civilian
clothes crossing from right to left. Her mind registered the movement
with only partial awareness: _man stops, points_. She was suddenly
alert, tears gone, following the direction of the civilian's extended
right arm, hearing his voice shout: "Hey! Look at that!"
A thin needle of an aircraft stitched a hurtling line across the watery
desert sky. It banked, arrowed toward the spaceship. Behind it roared
an airforce jet--delta wings vibrating, sun flashing off polished
metal. Tracers laced out toward the airship.
_Someone's attacking the spaceship!_ she thought. _It's a Russian ICBM!_
But the needle braked abruptly, impossibly, over the spaceship. Behind
it, the airforce jet's engine died, and there was only the eerie
whistling of air burning across its wings.
Gently, the needle lowered itself into a fold of the spaceship.
_It's one of theirs--the Galactics'_ she realized. _Why is it coming
here now? Do they suspect attack? Is that some kind of reinforcement?_
Deprived of its power, the jet staggered, skimmed out to a dust-geyser,
belly-landing in the alkali flats. Sirens screamed as emergency
vehicles raced toward it.
The confused sounds gave Francine a sudden feeling of nausea. She
took a deep breath, and stepped down to the concourse, moving without
conscious determination, her thoughts in a turmoil. The grating sand
beneath her feet was like an emery surface rubbing her nerves. She was
acutely conscious of an acrid, burning odor, and she realized with a
sudden stab of alarm that her security guard still waited behind her on
the steps of the administration building.
Vaguely, she heard voices babbling in the building doorways on both
sides of the concourse--people coming out to stare at the spaceship and
off across the flats where red trucks clustered around the jet.
A pebble had worked its way into her right shoe. Her mind registered
it, rejected an urge to stop and remove the irritant. An idea was
trying to surface in her mind. Momentarily, she was distracted by
a bee humming across her path. Quite inanely her mind dwelt on the
thought that the insect was too commonplace for this moment. A mental
drunkenness made her giddy. She felt both elated and terrified.
_Danger! Yes: terrible danger_, she thought. _Obliteration for the
entire human race. But something_
* * * * *
An explosion rocked the concourse, threw her stumbling to her hands
and knees. Sand burned against her palms. Dumb instinct brought her
back to her feet. Another explosion--farther away to the right, behind
the buildings. Bitter smoke swept across the concourse. Abruptly, men
lurched from behind the buildings on the right, slogging through the
sand toward the spaceship.
Civilians! Possibly--and yet they moved with the purposeful unity of
soldiers.
It was like a dream scene to Francine. The men carried weapons. She
stopped, saw the gleam of sunlight on metal, heard the peculiar
crunch-crunch of men running in sand. Through a dreamy haze she
recognized one of the runners: Zakheim. He carried a large black box on
his shoulders. His red hair flamed out in the group like a target.
_The Russians!_ she thought. _They've started their attack! If our
people join them now, it's the end!_
A machinegun stuttered somewhere to her right. Dust puffs walked
across the concourse, swept into the running figures. Men collapsed,
but others still slogged toward the spaceship. An explosion lifted the
leaders, sent them sprawling. Again, the machinegun chattered. Dark
figures lay on the sand like thrown dominoes. But still a few continued
their mad charge.
MP's in American uniforms ran out from between the buildings on the
right. The leaders carried submachineguns.
_We're stopping the attack_, thought Francine. But she knew the change
of tactics did not mean a rejection of violence by Speidel and the
others. It was only a move to keep the Russians from taking the lead.
She clenched her fists, ignored the fact that she stood exposed--a lone
figure in the middle of the concourse. Her senses registered an eerie
feeling of unreality.
Machineguns renewed their chatter and then--abrupt silence. But now
the last of the Russians had fallen. Pursuing MP's staggered. Several
stopped, wrenched at their guns.
Francine's shock gave way to cold rage. She moved forward, slowly at
first and then striding. Off to the left someone shouted: "Hey! Lady!
Get down!" She ignored the voice.
There on the sand ahead was Zakheim's pitiful crumpled figure. A gritty
redness spread around his chest.
Someone ran from between the buildings on her left, waved at her to go
back. _Hiko!_ But she continued her purposeful stride, compelled beyond
any conscious willing to stop. She saw the red-headed figure on the
sand as though she peered down a tunnel.
Part of her mind registered the fact that Hiko stumbled, slowing his
running charge to intercept her. He looked like a man clawing his way
through water.
_Dear Hiko_, she thought. _I have to get to Zak. Poor foolish Zak.
That's what was wrong with him the other day at the conference. He knew
about this attack and was afraid._
Something congealed around her feet, spread upward over her ankles,
quickly surged over her knees. She could see nothing unusual, but it
was as though she had plowed into a pool of molasses. Every step took
terrible effort. The molasses pool moved above her hips, her waist.
_So that's why Hiko and the MP's are moving so slowly_, she thought.
_It's a defensive weapon from the ship. Must be._
Zakheim's sprawled figure was only three steps away from her now. She
wrenched her way through the congealed air, panting with the exertion.
Her muscles ached from the effort. She knelt beside Zakheim. Ignoring
the blood that stained her skirt she took up one of his outstretched
hands, felt for a pulse. Nothing. Now, she recognized the marks on
his jacket. They were bullet holes. A machinegun burst had caught
him across the chest. He was dead. She thought of the big garrulous
red-head, so full of blooming life only minutes before. _Poor foolish
Zak._ She put his hand down gently, shook the tears from her eyes. A
terrible rage swelled in her.
She sensed Ohashi nearby, struggling toward her, heard him gasp: "Is
Zak dead?"
Tears dripped unheeded from her eyes. She nodded. "Yes, he is." And she
thought: _I'm not crying for Zak. I'm crying for myself ... for all of
us ... so foolish, so determined, so blind...._
"EARTH PEOPLE!" The voice roared from the spaceship, cutting across all
thought, stilling all emotion into a waiting fear. "WE HAD HOPED YOU
COULD LEARN TO COMMUNICATE!" roared the voice. "YOU HAVE FAILED!"
Vibrant silence.
* * * * *
Thoughts that had been struggling for recognition began surging to
the surface of Francine's mind. She felt herself caught in the throes
of a mental earthquake, her soul brought to a crisis as sharp as that
of giving birth. The crashing words had broken through a last barrier
in her mind. "COMMUNICATE!" At last she understood the meaning of the
ultimatum.
But was it too late?
"No!" she screamed. She surged to her feet, shook a fist at the ship.
"Here's one who didn't fail! I know what you meant!" She shook both
fists at the ship. "See my hate!"
Against the almost tangible congealing of air she forced her way toward
the now silent ship, thrust out her left hand toward the dead figures
on the sand all around her. "You killed these poor fools! What did you
expect from them? You did this! You forced them into a corner!"
The doors of the spaceship opened. Five green-skinned figures
emerged. They stopped, stood staring at her, their shoulders slumped.
Simultaneously, Francine felt the thickened air relax its hold upon
her. She strode forward, tears coursing down her cheeks.
"You made them afraid!" she shouted. "What else could they do? The
fearful can't think."
Sobs overcame her. She felt violence shivering in her muscles. There
was a terrible desire in her--a need to get her hands on those green
figures, to shake them, hurt them. "I hope you're proud of what you've
done."
"QUIET!" boomed the voice from the ship.
"I will not!" she screamed. She shook her head, feeling the wildness
that smothered her inhibitions. "Oh, I know you were right about
communicating ... but you were wrong, too. You didn't have to resort to
violence."
The voice from the ship intruded on a softer tone, all the more
compelling for the change: "Please?" There was a delicate sense of
pleading to the word.
Francine broke off. She felt that she had just awakened from a lifelong
daze, but that this clarity of thought-cum-action was a delicate thing
she could lose in the wink of an eye.
"We did what we had to do," said the voice. "You see our five
representatives there?"
Francine focused on the slump-shouldered Galactics. They looked
defeated, radiating sadness. The gaping door of the ship a few paces
behind was like a mouth ready to swallow them.
"Those five are among the eight hundred survivors of a race that once
numbered six billion," said the voice.
Francine felt Ohashi move up beside her, glanced sidelong at him, then
back to the Galactics. Behind her, she heard a low mumbling murmur of
many voices. The slow beginning of reaction to her emotional outburst
made her sway. A sob caught in her throat.
The voice from the ship rolled on: "This once great race did not
realize the importance of unmistakable communication. They entered
space in that sick condition--hating, fearing, fighting. There was
appalling bloodshed on their side and--ours--before we could subdue
them."
A scuffing sound intruded as the five green-skinned figures shuffled
forward. They were trembling, and Francine saw glistening drops of
wetness below their crests. Their eyes blinked. She sensed the aura of
sadness about them, and new tears welled in her eyes.
"The eight hundred survivors--to atone for the errors of their race
and to earn the right of further survival--developed a new language,"
said the voice from the ship. "It is, perhaps, the ultimate language.
They have made themselves the masters of all languages to serve as our
interpreters." There was a long pause, then: "Think very carefully,
Mrs. Millar. Do you know why they are our interpreters?"
The held breath of silence hung over them. Francine swallowed past the
thick tightness in her throat. This was the moment that could spell the
end of the human race, or could open new doors for them--and she knew
it.
"Because they cannot lie," she husked.
"Then you have truly learned," said the voice. "My original purpose
in coming down here just now was to direct the sterilization of your
planet. We thought that your military preparations were a final
evidence of your failure. We see now that this was merely the abortive
desperation of a minority. We have acted in haste. Our apologies."
* * * * *
The green-skinned Galactics shuffled forward, stopped two paces from
Francine. Their ridged crests drooped, shoulders sagged.
"Slay us," croaked one. His eyes turned toward the dead men on the sand
around them.
Francine took a deep, shuddering breath, wiped at her damp eyes. Again
she felt the bottomless sense of futility. "Did it have to be this
way?" she whispered.
The voice from the ship answered: "Better this than a sterile
planet--the complete destruction of your race. Do not blame our
interpreters. If a race can learn to communicate, it can be saved. Your
race can be saved. First we had to make certain you held the potential.
There will be pain in the new ways, no doubt. Many still will try to
fight us, but you have not yet erupted fully into space where it would
be more difficult to control your course."
"Why couldn't you have just picked some of us, tested a few of us?" she
demanded. "Why did you put this terrible pressure on the entire world?"
"What if we had picked the wrong ones?" asked the voice. "How could
we be certain with a strange race such as yours that we had a fair
sampling of your highest potential? No. All of you had to have the
opportunity to learn of our problem. The pressure was to be certain
that your own people chose their best representatives."
Francine thought of the unimaginative rule-book followers who had led
the teams. She felt hysteria close to the surface.
_So close. So hellishly close!_