"Is Harla color-blind?"
"No, but from what I gather Harla sees with a different spectrum than we do. So far as he is concerned both buttons look alike."
"You could have engraved 'em 'COME' and 'GO'."
Frank Crandall snorted. "Maybe you can deliver an 'English, Self-Taught' course through Teresa to the Venusian?"
I looked at Crandall. I didn't much care for him. It seemed that every time Holly Carter came down out of her fog of theoretical physics long enough to notice a simpleton who had to have a machine to perform routine calculations, we were joined by Frank Crandall who carted her off and away from me. If this be rank jealousy, make the most of it. I'm human.
"Crandall," I said, "even to a Hottentot I could point out that the engraved legend 'GO' contains two squiggly symbols, whereas the legend 'RETURN' contains 'many'."
Wallach stepped into the tension by saying, "So we didn't anticipate alien life. But now we've got the problem of communicating with it."
Crandall didn't appear to notice my stiff reply. He said, "Confound it, what's missing?"
"What's missing," I told him, "is some common point of reference."