'As we did them,' I said.
The symbolism of the creatures action, the lifting of weapons, and then thesetting aside of them, was clear. This action also, of course, was in accordwith the common Gorean convention in proposing a truce. That the creatures hadseen fit to utilize this convention, one of humans, was clear. I found this awelcome accommodation on their part. They seemed concerned to be congenial. Iwondered what they wanted. To be sure, however, it was only the lighter colored,and smaller, of the two creatures, that with rings in its ears, which hadperformed these actions. It might, indeed, be, for most practical purposes, adiplomat. The larger creature, the Blood, had stood by, unmoving. Yet clearlythese actions had been performed in its presence. This, then, was sufficientevidence of their acceptance on its part. I noted, the sort of thing a warriornotes, that the spear had been placed to their left, and that its head, too, wasoriented to their left. It was thus placed, and oriented, in such a way that theBlood, which stood on the left, from their point of view, if it favored theright hand, or paw, as most such creatures do, rather like humans, could easilybend down and seize it up.
'I see they have not come to surrender,' said Samos.
'No,' I said. The shield straps, which had been displayed to us with the shield,the shield held convex side down, bad not been torn away or cut, which wouldhave rendered the shield useless. Similarly the shaft of the spear had not beenbroken. They had not come to surrender.
The lips of the smaller of the two creatures drew back, exposing the fangs.
Samos stepped back. His hand went to the hilt of his sword.
'No,' I said to him, quietly. 'It is trying to imitate a human smile.'
The creature then detached, from the broad strap, which hung diagonally aboutits body, from its right shoulder to the left hip, an instrumented, metallic,oblong, boxlike device, which it placed on the table.
'It is a translator,' I said to Samos. I had seen one in a complex; some yearsearlier, in the north.
'I do not trust such creatures,' said Samos.
'Some of them specially trained,' I said, 'can understand Gorean.'
'Oh,' said Samos.
The smaller of the two creatures turned to the larger. It said something to him.
The speech of such creatures resembles a succession of snarls, growls, rasps andthroaty vibrations. The noises emitted are clearly animal noises, and, indeed,such as might naturally be associated with a large and powerful, predatorycarnivore; yet, on the other hand, there is a liquidity, and a precision andsubtlety about them which is unmistakable; one realizes, often uneasily, thatwhat one is listening to is a language.
The larger one inclined its huge, shaggy head, and then lifted it. The tips oftwo long, curved fangs, in the position of the upper canines, protruded slightlyfrom its closed mouth. It watched us.
The smaller of the two creatures then busied itself with the device on thetable.
Lowering the head is an almost universal assent gesture, in dictating submissionto, or agreement with, the other. The dissent gesture, on the other hand, showsmuch greater variety. Shaking the head sideways, among rational creatures, maybe taken as a negation of assent. Other forms of the nonassent gesture can beturning the head away from the other, sometimes with a gesture of the lips,indicating distaste, or even of ejecting an unwanted. Substance from the mouth,backing away, or lifting the head and extending the neck, sometimes baring thefangs and tensing the body, as in a variation on the bristling response.
'To be sure,' I said, 'it is extremely difficult for them to speak Gorean, oranother human language.' It was difficult for them, of course, given the natureof their oral cavity, throat, tongue, lips and teeth, to produce human phonemes.
They can, however, sometimes in a horrifying way, approximate them. I shuddered.
I had, once or twice, heard such creatures speaking Gorean. It had beendisconcerting to hear human speech, or something resembling human speech,emanating from such a source. I was just as pleased that we had a translator atour disposal.
'Look,' said Samos.
'I see,' I said.
A small, conical, red light began to glow on the top of the machine.
The slighter of the two monsters then drew itself up. It began to speak.
We understood, initially, of course, nothing of what it said. We listened to it,not moving, in the dim, pale- yellowish, flickering light of the unshuttered darklantern, amidst the dark, dancing shadows in that abandoned tam complex.
I remember noting the glinting of the golden rings in its ears, and themoistness of saliva about its dark lips and on its fangs.
'I am Kog,' came from the translator. 'I am below the rings. With me is Sardak,who is within the rings. I speak on behalf of the Peoples, and the chieftains ofthe Peoples, those who stand above the rings. I bring you greetings from theDominants, and from the Conceivers and Carriers. No greetings do I bring youfrom those unworthy of the rings, from the discounted ones, the unnamed andcraven ones. Similarly no greetings do I bring you from our domestic animals,those who are human and otherwise. In short, honor do I do unto you, bringingyou greetings from those who are entitled to extend greetings, and bringing youno greetings from those unworthy to give greetings. Thus, then, do I bring yougreetings on behalf of the Peoples, on behalf of the ships, and the SteelWorlds. Thus, then, do I bring you greetings on behalf of the cliffs of thethousand tribes.' These words, and word groups, came forth from the translator,following intervals between the creature's inputs. They are produced in a flat,mechanical fashion. The intonation contours, as well as meaningful tonalqualities, pitches and stresses, from which one can gather so much in livingspeech, unfortunately, tend to be absent or only randomly correlated in such aformal, desiccated output. Similarly the translation, it seems, is oftenimperfect, or, at least, awkward and choppy. Indeed, it takes a few momentsbefore one can begin to follow the productions of such a machine coherently but,once this adjustment is made, there is little difficulty in comprehending thegist of what is being conveyed. In my presentation of the machine's output Ihave, here and there, taken certain liberties. In particular I have liberalizedcertain phrasings and smoothed out various grammatical irregularities. On theother hand, given the fact that I am conveying this material in English, at tworemoves from the original, I think that the above translation and what follows,is not only reasonably adequate in a literal sense, but also conveys something,at least, of the flavor of the original. On the other hand, I do not claim tounderstand all aspects of the translation. For example, I am unclear on the ringstructure and on the significance of the references to tribal cliffs.
'I think, Samos,' I said, 'You are expected to respond.'
'I am Samos,' said Samos, 'and I thank you for your cordial and welcomesalutations.'
Fascinated, Samos and I listened to what was, with one exception, a successionof rumbling, throaty utterances emanating from the machine. The machineapparently accepted and registered Gorean phonemes, and then scanned thephonemic input for those phoneme combinations, which expressed Gorean cognitiveunits, or morphemes. In this way, morphemes, per se, or linguistic cognitiveunits, at least as comprehended units, do not occur in the machine. With a humantranslator sound is processed, and understood morphemically, which understandingis then reprocessed into the new phonemic structures. With the machine thecorrelation is simply between sound structures, simpliciter, and it is theauditor who supplies the understanding. To be sure, a linguistic talent of nomean degree is required to design and program such a device. We did hear oneGorean word in the translation. That was the name 'Samos'. When the machineencounters a phoneme or phonemic combination, which is not correlated with aphoneme or phoneme combination in the new language it presents the originalinput as a portion of the new output. For example, if one were to utter nonsensesyllables into the device the same nonsense syllables, unless an accident or acoincidence occurred, would be played back.
The creatures, then, heard the name of Samos. Whether they could pronounce it ornot, or how close they could come to pronounce it, would depend on the sound andon the capacity of their own vocal apparatus. This is different; it should benoted, with the names of the two creatures, 'Kog' and 'Sardak'. These names weregiven in Gorean phonemes, not in the phonemes of the creatures' own language. Inthis case, of course, this made it clear that these two names, at least, hadbeen programmed into the machine. The machine, doubtless, had been altered to beof aid to two particular individuals in some particular mission. PresumablySamos and I could not have pronounced the actual names of the creatures. 'Kog' and 'Sardak', however, doubtless correlated in some fashion, given some type ofphonemic transcription found acceptable by the creatures, with their actualnames. There was probably, at least, a syllabial correlation.
'I bring you greetings,' said Samos, 'from the Council of Captains, of Port Kar,Jewel of Gleaming
