"One more thing," Samson told him. "This slip of plastic they handed
me as a souvenir. They gave me a verbal translation, and I remember
it word for word. It's a dictionary entry: '_Man, noun. A pentagonal,
dipolar, monoplane dominant of intelligence 96_'--that's on their scale
with the average Kassid race at 100--'_native of District so-and-so_.'
The significance of it, from their point of view, is the '96.' It's
the first time they've been able to make an entry over 75 in the last
twelve or fourteen hundred years."
He frowned. "When I first got back and Midge neutralized the drugs, I
thought of it, and it seemed to me there might be an answer there. A
definition describes the observer as well as the thing observed. That
seemed like a brilliant thought to me at the time, but I can't see any
help in it now." He blinked unhappily. "All it seems to say is that
they've got a superficial and oversimplified system of classification,
meaning that physical structure isn't important to them--which we know
already ... my guess would be, incidentally, that the one who talked to
me was picked because the Kassids thought I'd feel at home with it. It
had five extremities, although none of them was a head; it had a top
and bottom and it faced in one direction. Ergo, it looked just like a
man. Over."
Midge said thoughtfully, "It's funny. If they were so geometrical
about it, why didn't they say bisexual?"
Samson chortled. "You _would_--" he began, and stopped abruptly, with
a stricken expression. "Wait a minute," he said. "Cancel the over.
Everybody shut up, even you, Harlow. The Midget has said something."
Midge seemed to be trying to look indignant, pleased in spite of
herself.
"Harlow, Midge," said Samson slowly after a time, "there's one other
thing about life in this universe that's been puzzling us for the
last six centuries. We know now that it has nothing to do with the
intelligence level, but we still don't know why everybody else but us
reproduces by simple division, budding, spores or conjugation--and in
consequence, lives a damn sight longer than we do, almost long enough
to make up for their low native intelligence. But just suppose that
Earth really is a freak planet--suppose that even the Kassids have
never run into a bisexual organism before. I didn't mention it to them,
and I'm willing to bet Jackson didn't either. You know how tough it
is to explain to a xeno--it generally takes ten days to convince them
you're not kidding. And, Harlow--suppose that I go down there again,
and take Midge along...."
* * * * *
When they re-entered the ship, Harlow's voice was saying, "Are you
there, Charles and Midge? Speak up, dammit. Over."
The Samsons looked at each other, glassy-eyed. "With you in a minute,
Harlow," Samson croaked, and lurched after Midge into the sick bay.
Both of them were full of arnophrene--Samson's second dose within two
hours, and an extra-heavy one for Midge.
They staggered into the living chamber again, some time later, and
collapsed on opposite sides of the couch.
"Never again," said Midge faintly.
Samson wet his lips. "It worked, Papa. They swallowed it. I gave Midge
enough of the stuff to make her about twice as disconnected as usual. I
walked in with a long face and told them that the change had started
in my absence. They wanted to know what change. I pointed to Midge, and
we stripped for them. They may not be interested in shapes, but there
was enough difference there to make them take notice. They called a
conference, and probed and poked and x-rayed us. I told them the story
of the caterpillar and the butterfly. Or the nymph and the waterbug,
I should say. You're the ugliest and dumbest member of this family,
Midge."
Midge made an inarticulate sound.
"I told them we're a two-stage organism," Samson said. "One stage
builds all the tall buildings, writes all the novels, does all the
high-class thinking. The other stage reproduces. I said we have a
forty-thousand-year cycle, half to each, but the first stage always
tries to retard the metamorphosis, because the second stage is so
stupid that it ruins our civilization every time, and we have to start
from scratch. I said I was awfully sorry, but the change had come
earlier than we expected this time, and there was nothing we could do
about it ... they're going off to the great nebula in Andromeda. Maybe
they'll find sixteen quintillion brainy races there, and they'll never
come back. The other way, at least we've got twenty thousand years to
think up another gag."