Nor Crystal Tears by Foster Alan Dean

Author:Foster, Alan Dean [Foster, Alan Dean]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780727845641
Amazon: 0727845640
Goodreads: 35134
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 1979-11-12T08:00:00+00:00

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After rising and performing hygiene he was ready to face his interrogators. Apparently someone had decided that it would be better not to swamp the unfortunate wanderer with a hundred questioners at once, so only a halfdozen assembled opposite Ryo in the discussion chamber. Each brought audio and video recorder units integrated with autoscrolls. Two were not much older than he, while the other four were clearly experienced elders. Wuu was present at his own insistence.

“It’s not necessary,” Ryo had argued. “I can handle things.”

“If not for me you wouldn’t be here,” the poet had replied. “I feel it my responsibility to see that you are not intimidated.”

“If not for me, you wouldn’t be here.”

“I have acquired sufficient material to keep me composing for the remainder of my life,” Wuu declared. “Such heady rhythms and couplets and stanzas as have never been heard. They will shock the civilized worlds. I owe you that. Time enough to work later.” He gestured toward the saddled group. “These sirs and ladies wait patiently, yet their brains fester with curiosity.” A couple shifted uneasily at the poet’s words but waited their turn. “I would not let them wake you.”

“For which I am very grateful,” Ryo admitted. “I am awake and ready now, so let them ask what they will.”

Ryo accepted the questions slowly, sharing his knowledge of the aliens freely and imparting it with as much pleasure as the scientists seemed to feel in receiving it.

“The business of communication came about almost accidentally,” he informed them. “Furthermore, if you use lungs, mandibles, and spicules carefully, you can duplicate their language quite well.” He demonstrated with a few words that he was especially good at, and was rewarded when a couple of the researchers who’d been inscribing information suddenly looked up as startled as if one of the aliens had just strode into the room.

“Do that again,” one of them requested.

They listened while Ryo repeated the phrase and added several others. “It is difficult, but by no means impossible,” he said. “They do seem, however, better able to master our language than we theirs. Yet I venture to say it can be done. I’ve no doubt an experienced linguist such as yourself,” and he gestured at the Thranx who’d asked him to repeat the sounds, “could do far better.”

“Let me try.” The researcher listened. On his second attempt he made the noise comprehensible. It had taken Ryo many more attempts than two to voice the term that clearly, but communication was the elder’s specialty. He should have thrown away his machines.

The others had to break in or the discussion would have quickly been monopolized by an impromptu language lesson.

“Pressure of circumstances,” the elder commented. “Foolish of us not to realize it.”

“They are mammalian,” said one of the younger scientists, whose name was Repleangel. “We’ve already established that. However, they are almost completely bare of fur. Most extraordinary.”

“We thought at first,” one of the other scientists said, “that it might be due to a seasonal variation.”

“I don’t think so,” Ryo said.

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