Again that sweet summons sounded.
“Pull yourself together, doctor,” Ross begged. “This is Earth. The people seem—very advanced. Don’t disgrace us. Please!”
Jones’s face went pale and perspiration broke out. “’Scuse me,” he mumbled, and staggered out again.
Ross closed the door on him and said, “We’ll leave him. He’ll be all right; nothing’s going to happen here.” He took a deep breath. “We’ll all go out,” he said.
Unconsciously Ross and Helena drew closer together and joined hands. They walked together down the unfolding ramp and approached the vehicle.
One of the coolly lovely women scrutinized them and turned to the man beside her. She remarked melodiously, “Yuhsehtheybebems!”, and laughed a silvery tinkle.
Panic gripped Ross for a long moment. A thing he had never considered, but a thing which he should have realized would be inevitable. Of course! These folk—older and incomparably more advanced than the rest of the peoples in the universe—would have evolved out of the common language into a speech of their own, deliberately or naturally rebuilt to handle the speed, subtlety, and power of their thoughts.
But perhaps the older speech was merely disused and not lost.
He said formally, quaking: “People of Earth, we are strangers from another star. We throw ourselves on your mercy and ask for your generosity. Our problem is summed up in the genetic law L-sub-T equals L-sub-zero e to the minus T-over-two-N. Of course——”
One of the men was laughing. Ross broke off.