"That's the sort of thing I was telling people about," he said. "At the Semiramide's crack-up. Three voices, I thought—then."
"That's the sort of half-witted story you tried to use at your trial."
"That's the sort of noise that Cahill made as he died. It's the sort of noise made by Brenner-Hughes. Clevis, could it be the rudiments of some odd new language?"
"How could you use it?"
"I don't know. Maybe a polysyllabic word like 'manifest' might turn out to be a single chord with certain articulation spoken in three distinct tones."
"How would you articulate?" asked Clevis.
"Well, you'd have to utter the same vocal sound sequence for all registers of the word. The word I just used for an example is a rather complicated series of sounds, with definitions I am not familiar with, like dental fricative, and sub-dental stop. Regardless of the names of the tongue-flappings," said Farradyne, "the word itself would have to be revised in pronunciation."
Clevis shook his head. "With a gizmo such as you are choking on," he said, "you'd have a hard time making a tone other than the one it's tuned for. You're asking a lot, Farradyne. Furthermore, I gather that you have a fair-to-middling ear."
"It isn't absolute pitch by a hell of a long way, but it is good enough to make my face turn sour when the third violinist hits a crab on his strings."
Clevis leaned back in the chair. "I'd be in bad shape," he said. "I'm tone-deaf. Someone would say, 'Clevis, have a drink?' and I'd shake my head because it sounded like 'Do you like radishes?'"