"I don't think they get it at all," he added in a whisper.
"They ought to," Lillian said. "Every language has a word for self and a word for person-addressed."
"Well, look at them," Karl Dorver invited. "Six different opinions about what we mean, and now the band's starting an argument of their own."
"Phase Two-A," Lillian said firmly, stepping forward. She pointed to herself. "Me—Lillian Ransby. Lillian Ransby—me name. You—name?"
"Bwoooo!" the spokesman screamed in horror, clutching his staff as though to shield it from profanation. The others howled like a hound-pack at a full moon, except one of the short-tunic boys, who was slapping himself on the head with both hands and yodeling. The horn-crew hastily swung their piece around at the Terrans, pumping frantically.
"What do you suppose I said?" Lillian asked.
"Oh, something like, 'Curse your gods, death to your king, and spit in your mother's face,' I suppose."
"Let me try it," Gofredo said.
The little Marine major went through the same routine. At his first word, the uproar stopped; before he was through, the natives' faces were sagging and crumbling into expressions of utter and heartbroken grief.
"It's not as bad as all that, is it?" he said. "You try it, Mark."