"Does this Harla understand the Heisenberg Effect?"
She said after a moment, "Harla says he has heard of it as a theory.
But he is not quite prepared to believe that it does indeed exist as
anything but an abstract physical concept."
"Tell Harla that Doctor Carter's awkward position is a direct result of
our ability to reduce the tunnel effect to operate on gross matter."
"He realizes that. But now he wants to know why you didn't fire one of
the lower animals as a test."
"Tell him that using animals for laboratory experiments is only
possible in a police state where the anti-vivisection league can be
exiled to Siberia. Mink coats and all. And let his Venusian mind make
what it can of that. Now, Teresa--"
"Yes?"
"Tell Harla, very carefully, that pressing the left-hand button will
flash the tunnel car back here as soon as he closes the airlock. But
tell him that pushing the right-hand button will create another bias
voltage--whereupon another mass of matter will cross the junction. In
effect, it will rip a hole out of this laboratory near the terminal,
over there, and try to make it occupy the same space as the tunnel car
on Venus. None of us can predict what might happen when two masses
attempt to occupy the same space. But the chances are that some of the
holocaust will backfire across the gap and be as violent at this end,
too."
"Harla says that he will touch nothing until he has been assured that
it is safe."
"Good. Now, Tom," he said, addressing me, "how can we tell right from
left?"
"Didn't you label 'em?"
"They're colored red on the right and green on the left."
"Is Harla color-blind?"
"No, but from what I gather Harla sees with a different spectrum than
we do. So far as he is concerned both buttons look alike."
"You could have engraved 'em 'COME' and 'GO'."
Frank Crandall snorted. "Maybe you can deliver an 'English,
Self-Taught' course through Teresa to the Venusian?"
I looked at Crandall. I didn't much care for him. It seemed that every
time Holly Carter came down out of her fog of theoretical physics long
enough to notice a simpleton who had to have a machine to perform
routine calculations, we were joined by Frank Crandall who carted her
off and away from me. If this be rank jealousy, make the most of it.
I'm human.
"Crandall," I said, "even to a Hottentot I could point out that the
engraved legend 'GO' contains two squiggly symbols, whereas the legend
'RETURN' contains 'many'."
* * * * *
Wallach stepped into the tension by saying, "So we didn't anticipate
alien life. But now we've got the problem of communicating with it."
Crandall didn't appear to notice my stiff reply. He said, "Confound it,
what's missing?"
"What's missing," I told him, "is some common point of reference."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning that I could define left from right to any semi-intelligent
human being who was aware of the environment in which we live."
"For example?"
I groped for an example and said, lamely, "Well, there's the weather
rule, valid for the northern hemisphere. When the wind is blowing on
your back, the left hand points to the low pressure center."
"Okay. But how about Venus? Astronomical information, I mean."