“Love of money is the root of all evil,” Kekkonen admonished their first screaming captive as they plopped her into a padded plastic container, “but love of food ranks a close second.”
Similarly disposing of the second victim, he touched his radio. “Command point one. Break. Kekkonen here. Two lemps coming in separate packages. When can you effect pickup? . . . Good. Kekkonen out.” He told de Kantzow, “He'll be overhead in about an hour.”
“Good, I thought we'd be stuck with the little frosters until nightfall. Is Coconut flying?”
Kekkonen lifted his face shield and spat. “No, it’s some Imp, which means we have to prepare a manifest. The Imp Navy has its regulations.”
While Kekkonen prepared the balloons, de Kantzow pulled a marker from a side pocket and swiftly scrawled his name, the date-time group, and a summary of the cage's contents on the side. They waited forty minutes to be on the safe side, then de Kantzow inquired, “First balloon ready?”
“Set.” Kekkonen had secured the two-meter balloon to a thick log to inflate it, and he whipped the free end to de Kantzow, who locked it to the cage and slipped the knot free. The cage followed the balloon into the air. A few seconds later, the second lemp followed.
De Kantzow and Kekkonen paused to watch. “Off they go,”Kekkonen said, “flying high into the sun.”
“I listed the little buggers as recruits for the Imp Navy,” de Kantzow confessed.
L-Day plus 40 [8-reed Rain 13]
SUPERIOR PRIVATE BRIT SMITS SHRUGGED OUT OF HIS PARACHUTE HARNESS and went to meet his welcoming committee, Corporal Kobus Nicodemus and six Blues. “Hello, Kobus. You taught these people English yet?” He glanced up at Dr. Tomomi Motofugi and Dr. Teruzo Ando, who were parachuting down after him.
Nicodemus laughed. “No, but we're working on it. I'll get your chute. Go on inside.”
Six members of the original Blue delegation had immediately paired off and attached themselves to Seki, Marais, and Katakura. The role of the other delegation members was not immediately apparent, and by now everyone on the contact team realized that it would probably take weeks or months to establish the meaning of complex concepts like “We come in peace and friendship.”
Feeling slightly foolish wearing khaki, Smits grabbed his bergen and walked into the kitchen tent, where he found Dr. Connie Marais seated around a table with two Blues.
Marais had positioned a computer terminal running a standard stenographic program so that the two Blues could see his spoken English displayed in written form. Over The Iceman's objections, Vereshchagin had permitted Dr. Seki to supply the Blues with several computers set to run modified, interactive English language tutorials; Kolomeitsev was concerned that computers would teach the Blues more about Earth's technology than about Earth's languages.
Marais lifted his head. “Oh, hello, Brit! Sit down.” A blond beard was coming in to cover some of his sunburn. He said very slowly, “Brit Smits, the person to your left is Ekpalawehud and the other is Meniolagomeka.”
“Bri Smi-sez,” Ek.palawehud repeated.
“Sorry, Doctor, I didn't mean to interrupt,” Smits stammered, taking a seat.
“No problem. We were at an impasse. We often get there.” Marais laughed. “We spend a lot of time just staring at each other when we run out of things to say. No, don't try shaking hands. They don't do that.”
Two of the Blues with Nicodemus followed Smits inside and awkwardly perched themselves on the edges of the two remaining camp chairs.
“So how are things aboard ship?” Marais asked.
“Oh, very well” Feeling confused, Smits tried to remember to speak slowly and make the correct signs. “Everyone is just a little disappointed that we aren't making better progress teaching the Blues English and learning their language.”
Marais smiled “It may not seem like much, but we are making progress. Consider the problems.” He held up a finger.
“First, humans and naturales do not have the same speech organs. Humans have the larynx, which allows sounds to be voiced or unvoiced, the soft palate, which controls nasal sounds, the lips, the tongue root, the tongue body, and the tongue tip.” As he spoke, he pointed to the various organs.
“Without ever thinking about it, you perform a whole series of gymnastics with these speech organs to form phonemes, which are bits of words, like the three phonemes that make up the word 'cat' English uses about forty phonemes.” Marais grinned. “Of course, one particular problem we have is that none of us are native English speakers. My English consonants and vowels sound Afrikaans, Dr. Seki's sound Japanese, and Isaac's sound like God knows what. At first, the naturales weren't sure we were all speaking the same language.”'
Ekpalawehud and Meniolagomeka listened diligently.
“Ekpalawehud and Meniolagomeka can't reproduce English phonemes any more than a parrot can--their vocal apparatus isn't built that way--but with practice, they can mimic sounds that our brains can recognize as English.”
Meniolagomeka said something to Ekpalawehud in a language that clearly wasn't English---or human.
“As you can see,” Marais continued, “we have even more trouble mimicking the sounds their language uses.”
Smits nodded. “Is there a reason why we have to say everything so slowly?”
“Try listening to yourself sometime. At normal speaking speed, words flow seamlessly into each other. The human brain can decode up to forty-five phonemes per second, which gives us the illusion that we are hearing a string of separate words, but in reality, the boundaries between words only exist in our minds.” Marais laughed “When you first begin to learn a foreign language, what do you say?”
Smits smiled.“Please speak slower.”
Marais nodded. “Despite millions of years of evolution to help you in decoding human vocal sounds, with a strange language you need help breaking the sounds into discrete words.” He placed his fingers around his voice box. “Yet another problem is the fact that human speech isn't a series of pure tones with a single frequency, but rather a wave with vibrations from a hundred cycles per second all the way up to four thousand cycles per second. When we speak, what the naturales hear is a buzz.”
“With all these difficulties, how do they manage to understand us at ali?” Smits asked, as Dr. Motofugi poked his head through the tent flap, followed by Dr. Ando.
“We don't know enough words to discuss this yet, but I am sure that they do what we do, which is to record everything, study the noises at night, and have computers try to break them down and make sense out of them. It is going to be a very slow process.”
In Orbit, HIMS Zuiho [9-reed Rain 13]
LOOKING TIRED BUT HAPPY, MARIA BEETlE DROPPED A PRINTOUT on top of Simon Beetje's computer. “Here it is. I checked my results over twice to be certain.”
Simon glanced through it “The female lemur-ape's karotype is 2N equals fifty-eight: sixteen macrochromosomes with median or submedian centomeres, ten macrochromosomes with terminal or subterminal centomeres, and thirty-two microchromosomes. Absolutely ordinary. I was hoping for something outlandish.”
Many of Neighbor’s small mammal analogues sent up for examination possessed combinations of three sex chromosomes—X, Y, and W--rather than the usual two, with the W chromosome suppressing the Y chromosome in the WY combination to leave an otherwise male animal female. Simon was quite sure that this would result in a permanent but stable imbalance between the two sexes.
“How closely are they related to the naturales?” he asked.
“Find me a naturale to dissect, and I will tell you.” Maria straightened. “The specimen was pregnant and would have given birth to quadruplets within a few days. Didn't Kalle say that all of the births have been quadruplets?”
“So far.”
“Interesting. This one would have done the same. The fetuses appeared very immature. Eleven centimeters on average. Three were female, one was male, which does not surprise me given the mother’s l
ow social rank. What really strikes me as interesting is the genotypes. Although all four are the same age, only two of them share the same father.”
Simon put the printout down and began thinking aloud. “Huh, that is interesting! Although they appear to have a fixed breeding season triggered by the onset of the rains, Kalle says they mate at any time.”
“The females either store sperm or delay implantation of fertilized eggs, I haven't decided which yet”
“Clearly either delayed fertilization or delayed implantation,” Beetje agreed, half to himself. “If the lemur-apes do this, I wonder if the naturales can, too?”
“Females that don't need males for years at a time,” his wife said, teasing him.
Simon said nothing.
L-Day plus 49 [8-mist Rain 13]
“YES, I KNOW WE NEED TO FIND ANTON A LARGER OFFICE,” COLDEWE SAID APOLOGETICALLY, as Pia Szuba, Simon Beetje, and Dr. Naoki Kita, head of the physical sciences working group, struggled to find seats, “but moving him to A deck would interfere with football practice.” He thought a few seconds longer. “Maybe we could use the sauna.”
The Iceman merely grinned.
Although Vereshchagin allowed all five scientific workinggroup leaders to attend staff meetings after Dr. Seki's departure, he was politely intolerant of idle chatter, and two of the five had asked to be excused with a fair degree of alacrity. The head of the interdisciplinary group, Dr. Iwao, only lasted one meeting.
“Shall we begin with you, Simon?” Vereshchagin asked.
“Oh, sorry.” Beetje rubbed his eyes. “We dissected the first lemur-ape. We're observing the other for the time being. Dr. Ozawa, Maria, and I all agree that they are likely to be closely related to the naturales, but there is no way to verify this until we have a tissue sample for comparison.”
Jan Snyman shrugged. “We're still looking for a cemetery.”
Beetje continued. “We've given linguistics details on the respiratory and nasal structure, which will help them understand the range of sounds that the naturales are capable of.”
Szuba interrupted, “Did this include an analysis of the auditory structure?”
“We will have that ready in a day or so,” Beetje admitted.
“Please provide the rest of us with a copy as well, Simon,” Vereshchagin ruled.
“And a translation,” Coldewe added.
Beetje went on, “We examined the eye structure very closely, and it would appear that the lemur-apes have excellent color vision. In fact, where humans have three types of color-detecting cells in the eye--blue, red, and green--lemur-apes have four.”
“Very impressive,” Major Aichi murmured.
“To a degree.” Beetje folded his hands. “Some Earth birds have seven. In any case, we are running tests on the male, and Esko Poikolainnen is helping me design a computer model. In a few days, I should be able to tell you what the lemur-apes see, and by extension, what the Blues see.”
“Please do. We need this as soon as practicable,” The Iceman commented.
Dr. Kita said politely, “Excuse me, please?”
Coldewe fingered the battledress he was wearing. “It could affect our operations. The camouflage we use is designed for human eyes. The individual threads of my uniform reflect different wavelengths of light, which allows me to blend into a variety of backgrounds. I wouldn't want to find out the hard way that this makes me stand out like a Christmas tree to a Blue. Similarly, our reconnaissance aircraft--the Sparrows, which are manned, and the Hummingbirds, which are not--are fitted with panels that match the ambient light. If the Blues see color differently than we do, we need to make adjustments.”
“Until we do so, it would be very dangerous for us to use our reconnaissance aircraft,” Vereshchagin explained “Hans, you are next.”
Coldewe nodded. “Maintaining covert surveillance is either nerve-racking or boring, and usually it’s both. Salchow has found a good safe zone in the limestone cliffs by the head of the bay. As soon as Simon comes through on the vision, I want to set up a pennanent camp so I can land some aircraft and start rotating teams in to rest before some of our moles start killing each other.”
“I concur, and I would also suggest changing some of the hide sites,” The Iceman intetjected. “In our observations of the peasantry, we may be reaching the point of diminishing returns.”
“Agreed.” Vereshchagin said. “Next, I would like to address the issue of the motive power of local motor vehicles. It would appear that vehicles run on stored electric power in some manner, but the precise mechanism is unclear and appears potentially worth knowing. Dr. Kita's committee examined the pictures that Alariesto's team took and passed the problem on to the interdisciplinary team.” He gave Kita a sharp look. “The interdisciplinary team has requested a vehicle engine to examine.”
“Last week,” Jan Snyman complained, “they wanted us to take a close look at a truck. This week, they want us to steal a truck.”
“Just the engine, Jan,” Simon Beetje said jocularly.
“Better and better,” Snyman agreed. “They want us to disassemble the truck and steal selected portions. Has anyone on the interdisciplinary committee ever tried to lift a truck engine?”
“Hans?” Vereshchagin asked.
Coldewe spread his hands. “No promises. We'll toss the idea back and forth and see if anyone has any ideas.”
“Thank you, Hans.” Vereshchagin turned to Szuba, who spoke for the linguistics working group, stripped to staff the contact team, as well as her own. “Pia, where are we with language?”
“We are beginning to progress in teaching the naturales English. We have had less success learning their language. We anticipated difficulties. May I explain?”
“Please do.”
Aichi interjected, “I recall how I first learned English: I wonder if there is some way to immerse the contact team in the culture more.”
Szuba smiled. “I wish it were that simple. Just as songbirds inherit the ability to learn bird songs, thousands of generations of natural selection have produced an innate capacity to learn human language in humans.”
“True,” Aichi conceded.
“This ability to learn human language does not necessarily relate to the ability to cognate, as many people assume,” Szuba continued didactically.
Coldewe grinned. “People who can talk can't necessarily think.”
Szuba nodded. “I should mention examples. Williams Syndrome is caused by a defect in chromosome eleven. Although children with the syndrome are severely retarded, they absorb words readily and converse loquaciously, although their discourse is empty of meaning.” She smiled impishly. “Some people call it 'party-conversation syndrome.' The reverse is also true. Persons born with any of the various types of specific language impairment have perfectly normal intelligence, but are only able to string words together with extreme difficulty.”
“How does this affect our ability to converse with the Blues?” Kolomeitsev asked.
“Every human being shares a common, however distant, ancestry and a certain basic way of looking at language. In a crude sense, we humans have a certain operating system for language
built into our genes, like the operating system on a computer. The naturales have a different operating system, which is similar to ours--indeed, we appear to share many basic assumptions about the nature of language--but it is designed to a different standard.”
The Iceman continued to probe. “This fails to explain why they seem to be picking up more English than we are able to pick up of their language.”
Szuba hesitated. “The linguistics team has not yet arrived at a suitable consensus on this matter.”
“I understand,” Vereshchagin said “What do you think?”
Again Szuba hesitated. Finally, she said, “One factor appears to be that the naturales are superb at mimicking sounds and tonal qualities, while most human beings are not, myself included. A second factor may be that
the naturales have an entire continent from which to select personnel. Had we assembled the contact team on Earth, I am sure that we could have gotten persons more talented.” She paused. “It is also possible that the naturales have an aversion to allowing us to learn their language, for reasons that we cannot comprehend as yet”
Vereshchagin turned to The Iceman. “What is it that we need to know in their language?”
“I would like to know the word for 'missile,' “ Kolomeitsev replied.
Coldewe leaned back in his chair and hammered on the door. A moment later, Esko Poikolainnen stuck his head inside.
“Esko, please establish contact with Dr. Seki,” Vereshchagin said in a soft voice.
Poikolainnen nodded, and a moment later, Seki's image appeared on the wall behind Simon Beetje's head.
“Hello, Doctor,” Vereshchagin said. “I am calling to ask whether you have made any progress in learning local equivalents for the words on the list I gave you.”
“Not as yet, Vice-Commissioner,” Seki replied. “Indeed, we do not know whether these people even have a word for war.”
“We know very little, Doctor. Whether or not these people have a word for war, they do know how to wage it,” Vereshchagin said quietly. “Please show them pictures of the missiles and insist upon being told what they are called.”
“Commissioner, I beseech you. Whenever we bring out pictures of weapons, the naturales turn their backs and refuse to speak with us. We have made such a promising beginning that I implore you not to place it in jeopardy,” Seki said, clearly anguished by the thought. “What possible purpose would this serve?”
“It would be helpful to know what a missile is called the next time they fire one at us,” Vereshchagin explained patiently. “Please pursue the matter. Vereshchagin out”
He looked around the crowded and suddenly silent room. “Is there anything else we should discuss?”
Beetje spoke up. “I would ask you to keep de Kantzow's team in place as long as possible. In fact, I would ask you to consider sending Kantaro Ozawa down to study the lemur-apes firsthand.”
Cain's Land Page 24