Inside, my last thought met with a strange correspondence. The Matriarch’s quarters were a rather abstract version of what I might imagine the tents of the tribes of Israel to have been like. Abstract, I say, because it was all frescoed brick, peaked like a huge tent, with animal-skin representations like gray-blue scars, that looked as if they had been laid on the walls with a palette knife. The Matriarch, M’Cwyie, was short, white-haired, fifty-ish, and dressed like a queen. With her rainbow of voluminous skirts she looked like an inverted punch bowl set atop a cushion. Accepting my obeisances, she regarded me as an owl might a rabbit. The lids of those blank, black eyes jumped upwards as she discovered my perfect accent. –The tape recorder Betty had carried on her interviews had done its part, and I knew the language reports from the first two expeditions, verbatim. I’m all hell when it comes to picking up accents. “You are the poet?” “Yes,” I replied. “Recite one of your poems, please.” “I’m sorry, but nothing short of a thorough translating job would do justice to your language and my poetry, and I don’t know enough of your language yet.” “Oh?” “But I’ve been making such translations for my own amusement, as an exercise in grammar,” I continued. “I’d be honored to bring a few of them along one of the times that I come here.” “Yes. Do so.” Score one for me! She turned to Betty. “You may go now.” Betty muttered the parting formalities, gave me a strange sideways look, and was gone. She apparently had expected to stay and “assist” me. She wanted a piece of the glory, like everyone else. But I was the Schliemann at this Troy, and there would be only one name on the Association report! M’Cwyie rose, and I noticed that she gained very little height by standing. But then I’m six-six and look like a poplar in October; thin, bright red on top, and towering above everyone else. “Our records are very, very old,” she began. “Betty says that your word for that age is `millennia.`” I nodded appreciatively. “I’m very anxious to see them.” “They are not here. We will have to go into the Temple–they may not be removed.” I was suddenly wary. “You have no objections to my copying them, do you?” “No. I see that you respect them, or your desire would not be so great.” “Excellent.” She seemed amused. I asked her what was so funny. “The High Tongue may not be so easy for a foreigner to learn.” It came through fast. No one on the first expedition had gotten this close. I had had no way of knowing that this was a double-language deal–a classical as well as a vulgar. I knew some of their Prakrit, now I had to learn all their Sanskrit. “Ouch, and damn!” “Pardon, please?” “It’s non-translatable, M’Cwyie. But imagine yourself having to learn the High Tongue in a hurry, and you can guess at the sentiment.” She seemed amused again, and told me to remove my shoes. She guided me through an alcove… …and into a burst of Byzantine brilliance!
No Earthman had ever been in this room before, or I would have heard about it. Carter, the first expedition’s linguist, with the help of one Mary Allen, M.D., had learned all the grammar and vocabulary that I knew while sitting cross-legged in the antechamber. We had had no idea this existed. Greedily, I cast my eyes about. A highly sophisticated system of esthetics lay behind the decor. We would have to revise our entire estimation of Martian culture. For one thing, the ceiling was vaulted and corbeled; for another, there were side-columns with reverse flutings; for another–oh hell! The place was big. Posh. You could never have guessed it from the shaggy outsides. I bent forward to study the gilt filigree on a ceremonial table. M’Cwyie seemed a bit smug at my intentness, but I’d still have hated to play poker with her. The table was loaded with books. With my toe, I traced a mosaic on the floor. “Is your entire city within this one building?” “Yes, it goes far back into the mountain.” “I see,” I said, seeing nothing. I couldn’t ask her for a conducted tour, yet. She moved to a small stool by the table. “Shall we begin your friendship with the High Tongue?” I was trying to photograph the hall with my eyes, knowing I would have to get a camera in here, somehow, sooner or later. I tore my gaze from a statuette and nodded, hard. “Yes, introduce me.” I sat down. For the next three weeks alphabet-bugs chased each other behind my eyelids whenever I tried to sleep. The sky was an unclouded pool of turquoise that rippled calligraphies whenever I swept my eyes across it. I drank quarts of coffee while I worked and mixed cocktails of Benzedrine and champagne for my coffee breaks. M’Cwyie tutored me two hours every morning, and occasionally for another two in the evening. I spent an additional fourteen hours a day on my own, once I had gotten up sufficient momentum to go ahead alone. And at night the elevator of time dropped me to its bottom floors…