Close to Critical

EPILOGUE: COOPERATION

“I told you human beings were helpless and useless.” Happy as he was, Aminadabarlee gave up his ideas with difficulty. “You spend weeks trying to rig a rescue, and then are outsmarted by a savage with less education than either of these children. You spend a decade or two training agents of your own on the planet, and learn more useful facts in a week from natives you never bothered to contact directly.”

“Natives who would have tried to eat the robot if any such attempt had been made,” Easy pointed out. “Remember, ’Mina and I know Swift. He respected the, robot because it could talk and tell him things. He’d have ignored it or destroyed it otherwise.”

Aminadabarlee’s eyes sought his son, who made a gesture of agreement. “Well, anyway, the natives with their own culture are a lot more use, and I’ll prove it soon enough.”

“How?” asked Raeker.

“I’ll have a Drommian project here in three months. We can talk to Swift as well as you, and we’ll see who learns more about geophysics in general and Tenebra in particular after that.”

“Wouldn’t it be more profitable to run the projects jointly, and exchange information?”

“You’d certainly have to say that,” sneered the non-human. “I’ve had enough of cooperation with human beings, and so has the rest of Dromm, if my opinion’s good for anything. You learned Swift’s language, didn’t you, son?”

“Yes, Dad, but—”

“Never mind the but. I know you like Easy, and I suppose she’s a little less poisonous than most human beings after the time she spent with you, but I know what I’m talking about. Here—use the robot voice and call Swift over to it; you can say something to him for me.”

“But I can’t, Dad.” Even the human beings could see that the youngster was uncomfortable.

“Can’t? What do you mean? You just said you’d learned enough of their language—”

“Oh, I understand it well enough. I just can’t speak it.”

“You mean you just listened, and let that human girl do all the talking? I’m ashamed of you. You know perfectly well that no chance to learn the use of a new language should ever be missed.”

“I didn’t miss it, Dad.” Aminadabarlee seemed to swell slightly.

“Then, in the name of both suns, tell me what you did do!” His voice came closer to a roar than anyone in the room had ever heard from him. Aminadorneldo looked a little helplessly at Easy.

“All right, ’Mina,” the girl said. “We’ll show him.”

The two took their places before the microphone, which Easy snapped on. Then, keeping their eyes fixed on each other, they began to speak in unison. The sounds they produced were weird; sometimes both were together, sometimes the Drommian carried a high note alone, somtimes Easy took the deeper registers. A similar sound, which Raeker recognized perfectly well and understood slightly, came from the speaker; Easy started an answer, using her hands to guide her “little” companion on what words were coming next. They had apparently worked out a fairly satisfactory deaf-mute code between them; and While they spoke much more slowly than Swift, they were obviously perfectly clear to the native.

“He’s here, Councillor,” Easy remarked after a moment. “What did you want to say to him? This particular translating team is ready to go to work. I do hope you’ll forgive ’Mina for cooperating with a human being. There really wasn’t any other way, you know.”

Nobody laughed.