"Who knows?" she asked. "It stands there like a bowlegged professor in that black leotard. Those sounds spew out of it as though they'd never stop. It wriggles at us. It waves. It sways. Its face contorts, if you can call it a face. We recorded and filmed it all, naturally, but it sounded like the usual mish-mash!"
"There's something in the gestures," said Ohashi. "If we only had more competent pasimolgists."
"How many times have you seen the same total gesture repeated with the same sound?" demanded Zakheim.
"You've carefully studied our films," said Ohashi. "Not enough times to give us a solid base for comparison. But I do not despair—"
"It was a rhetorical question," said Zakheim.
"We really need more multi-linguists," said Goré. "Now is when we most miss the loss of such great linguists as Mrs. Millar's husband."
Francine closed her eyes, took a short, painful breath. "Bob...." She shook her head. No. That's the past. He's gone. The tears are ended.
"I had the pleasure of meeting him in Paris shortly before the ... end," continued Goré. "He was lecturing on the development of the similar sound schemes in Italian and Japanese."
Francine nodded. She felt suddenly empty.