“I said long ago that we need Dar’s race, though you chose to interpret my words differently. What is more, his people need ours just as badly, even though Dar Lang Ahn doesn’t know it — his Teachers do, at least.”
“Then why don’t you treat them as friends instead of inferiors?”
“They are friends. I feel a particularly strong attachment for Dar Lang Ahn; that is one reason you were so well treated while you were in this place before, and why I sent my villagers away rather than risk violence when you came this time.”
“If you are so fond of Dar — whom you have never seen before in your life, as nearly as I can see — why did you keep his books? That has bothered him more than anything else that has happened since I have known him.”
“That was for experimental reasons, I am afraid. I wanted to learn more about you. I am sorry that Dar Lang Ahn suffered, but I am glad to have learned something of your capacity for sympathy and friendship. His books will be on the trap at the place where we used to talk as soon as I can get them there after ending this conversation.”
“How about my fire-lighter?”
“Do you really want it? I took it apart, I’m afraid, and am not sure that I could get it back together again. The condenser (he had to stop to explain this word) was, of course, quite familiar to us, but the part that turns the sun’s heat into electricity was not. If you can spare it my scientists would be interested — when we have some.”
“I thought you didn’t want your people to learn too much.”
“I don’t, but I seriously doubt that this particular device will get any of them off the planet. I judge that it is less practical for our purposes than the generators we already use, which tap the volcanic heat of Abyormen.”
“Then you are living underground, near volcanoes where it is hot enough to suit you? I should think from what I saw of this continent that a good many of you must live through the cold time.”
“I am underground, as you say, but there are not many of us. Only four live in this area; similar numbers are in each of our other cities.”
“But you must have a lot more room to live in during your bad season than the others do. They’re cramped under that ice cap…”
“Which is many hundreds of miles across at its smallest. It would be possible to dig caverns and, probably, store food enough for most if not all of the race.”
“And there are volcanoes for I don’t know how many hundreds of miles down the length of that peninsula I followed from the place I was left. In short, there doesn’t seem to be any reason why both races can’t live at full strength all the time. What’s wrong with the idea?”
“I have been giving you hints as to what is wrong with it all through this conversation. I told you each race was necessary to the other; you seem to believe that is due to our laziness. I mentioned that other planets would be unsuitable because they would not kill us at the right time; you appear to have put that down to superstition. I tell you that I have a strong personal interest in Dar Lang Ahn’s welfare, and apparently you simply don’t believe it. You remark on your own that there is no technical impossibility, or even great difficulty, in our remaining alive throughout the year if we choose. Instead of putting all those items together, you treat them as a group of separate impossibilities. I confess I have been trying ever since this conversation started to get some sort of idea of human intelligence, and you are certainly not giving me a high one. Can you honestly not think of an explanation that will embrace all those facts?”
Kruger frowned, and no one spoke for a minute or so; then Dar Lang Ahn made a remark.
“If you are testing intelligence, Teacher, you’d better compare his with mine. I’ve lived on Abyormen all my life and don’t see what you’re driving at.”
“Your training would prevent it.”
“Then I’d like to think that mine does the same thing,” snapped Kruger, somewhat annoyed. “Why should I be able to win your guessing game if he can’t?”
“Very well, I do not wish to cause you anger. The explanation will, I think, be easiest if you give me some words in your language. I understand that individuals of your race are directly concerned with the production of other individuals. What is the newly produced being called?”
“A child — son or daughter, according to…”
“The general term will be enough. Is there a word describing the relationship of two childs produced by the same individual?”
“Brother or sister, according…”
“All right, I will assume either word is usable. I have no child, since I am still alive, but Dar Lang Ahn is a child of my brother.”
The silence was much longer this time, while Nils Kruger fitted piece after piece of the jigsaw puzzle into place, and his attitude grew from one of sheer disbelief, through gradual recognition of the possibilities, to acceptance. “You win — Uncle!” he said weakly, at last. “But I still don’t see…”
Kruger’s sentence was interrupted — and not by the Teacher.
“I think I’ll say ‘uncle’ too.” The voice was a slow drawl that the boy had never to his knowledge heard before, but it was speaking English. “I can stand,” it went on, “an occasional word that sounds like good old English in any collection of random noises, and will gladly put it down to coincidence. However, when ‘child,’ ‘son,’ ‘daughter,’ ‘brother,’ ‘sister,’ and ‘uncle’ all occur within the same thirty-second period, coincidence goes a long, long way out the window. Mr. Nils Kruger, if you’ve been contributing heavily to the conversations we’ve been recording for the last couple of weeks, I hope you’ve developed a good accent. If not, a couple of philologists I know are going to be very, very angry indeed!”
XI. ASTRONOMY; DIPLOMACY
MOST HUMAN beings continue hoping long after any logical excuse for it has died. The man going into battle against impossible odds, the pilot who stays with a blazing airplane to guide it away from a city, the condemned criminal in the death cell — few of them give up while they breathe. Nils Kruger had not entirely relinquished hope of seeing Earth again. He did not, however, expect to be rescued. He had had faint ideas, which he would have admitted himself were illogical, that perhaps by combining Abyormenite technology with his own some sort of ship able to cross the five hundred light years to the solar system might be built. Even after he had gained a fairly accurate idea of the technical limitations of Dar Lang Ahn’s race the thought had not entirely vanished; but unreasonable as he may have been in this respect, he never for an instant supposed that another terrestrial space ship would approach the Pleiades during his lifetime. There was too much else for them to do.
As a result the sound of an unmistakably human voice cutting in on his conversation with a creature who could hardly be less human gave Kruger quite literally the shock of his life. For some moments he was completely unable to speak. Several questions came from the radio, and when these were answered only by Dar Lang Ahn’s rather unfortunate attempts at English the disturbance in the distant space ship was nearly as great as that in the hut.
“That can’t be Kruger — he wouldn’t talk like that, and anyway he’s dead!”
“But where could they have learned English?”
“My year-old kid speaks better English than that!”
“Kruger, is that you or has the philology department gone off the rails?”
“I–I’m here all right, but you shouldn’t do things like that. What ship is that? and how come you were listening in? and what are you doing in the Pleiades anyway?”
“It’s your own ship, the
“Strictly home grown.” Kruger was back in control of himself, though his knees still felt weak. “Just a minute,
