"That's precisely why you should abandon your hunting here. My good man, just what do you consider intelligence?" She held up her hand to prevent his answering. "For instance, a good many of the what you would call animals on this little planet have developed a spoken language. And I don't mean a mother's warning to her cubs, or one male challenging another. I mean, for instance, the news I received this morning." She smiled. "Would you like to know what a little bird told me?"
He nodded. "I'm all ears."
"Well," she said thoughtfully, "it wasn't such a little bird, and it wasn't exactly news to me. After all, I'd seen your braking jets in the ionosphere and heard the cavitation rumble when you were settling into denser atmosphere in your orbit. But, anyway, here's what my birdie told me: 'A thing with sun-fire at both ends has come down out of the sky two flights from here. Now a flock of two-legged beasts from it are attacking the plants. We don't understand!'" Her face relaxed into a disconcerting smile. "They couldn't understand why you were so angry with the grass and the trees!"
"Extremely funny," he said gravely. "It just happens to be meaningless, also."
"Don't you see? They can communicate ideas!"
"Fine," he nodded. "What of it?"
"But—but that means they're intelligent. Too intelligent to be called 'animals'!"
He shook his head. "On Terra only one animal developed communications to a high degree. But we long ago decided that some other animals were fairly intelligent, for all that they didn't appear to speak among themselves. On many other worlds—and I can name you a score I've visited—lots of so-called 'animals', apart from the intelligences we dealt with, had developed fairly complex methods of communications that would put the old Terran elephants and ants to shame. That still didn't make them what we called 'people'."
Her eyes were hot with scorn. "I know that! If you'd lived with the Thisbeans as long as I have you'd understand. Why—"