Blish,James – And all the Stars a Stage

720-degree pivot, returning at last to look at the leader. To this he

responded with so rapid an opening and closing of both hands that it was

impossible to keep count, nor did jorn believe that that was what bad been

intended; it was the plainest kind of manual sign for the word “many.”

“He understands, all right,” jorn said. “He’s not only intelligent, but

be’s exceedingly fast on the uptake. I think wed better be careful, no

matter how harmless these ten may look.”

“For once,” Ailiss said grimly, I couldn’t agree with you more.”

The party picked up the language of the people of the favelin with

astonishing rapidity, much faster than anyone in the camp could pick up

theirs. The humiliating reason for this, it soon turned out, was that

theirs was by far the ricber and more complex. Among the several knots in

it which nobody proved completely able to untie was a syntax of

states-of-being, partly referrable to the emotions and partly to a con-

struct of metaphysical concepts, which Ertak was not psychologist enough

and Ailiss not philosopher

And all the Stars a Stage 123 enough to plumb more than

fractionally. Nobody else in the camp ever got any farther

than recognizing its existence.

But there seemed to be no reason to be afraid of them or of the people they

represented. Their sole desire, and indeed the whole purpose of their visit

to the camp, seemed to be to know whether the strangers in the giant house

had any orders they could have the honor (sanctity? enrichment?) of

obeying. Toward the end of the second week, one bold unauthorized soul