"Why?" Stanton asked. "If they have perfect memories, why would histories be distorted?"
"Time, my dear boy. Time." Yoritomo spread his hands in a gesture of futility. "When one has a few million years of history to learn, it must become distorted, even in a race with a perfect memory. Otherwise, no individual would have a chance to learn it all in a single lifetime, even a lifetime of five hundred years, much less to pass that knowledge on to another. So only the most important events are reported. And that means that each historian must also be an editor. He must excise those portions which he considers unimportant."
"But wouldn't that very limitation induce them to record history?" Stanton asked. "Right there is your inducement to use a written language."
Yoritomo looked at him with wide-eyed innocence. "Why? What good is history?"
"Ohhh," said Stanton. "I see."
"Certainly you do," Yoritomo said firmly. "Of what use is history to the ritual-taboo culture? Only to record what is to be done. And, with a memory that can know what is to be done, of what use is a historian, except to remember the important things. No ritual-taboo culture looks upon history as we do. Only the doings of the great are recorded. All else must be edited out. Thus, while the memory of the individual may be, and is, perfect, the memory of the race is not. But they don't know that!"
"What about communications, then?" Stanton asked. "What did they use before they invented radio?"
"Couriers," Yoritomo said. "And, possibly, written messages from one priestly scribe to another. That last, by the way, has probably survived in a ritualistic form. When an officer is appointed to a post, let's say, he may get a formal paper that says so. The Nipes may use symbols to signify rank and so on. They must have a symbology for the calibration of scientific instruments.
"But none of these requires the complexity of a written language. I dare say our use of it is quite baffling to him.
"For teaching purposes, it is quite unnecessary. Look at what television and such have done in our own civilization. With such tools as that at hand—recordings and pictures—it is possible to teach a person a great many things without ever teaching him to read. A Nipe certainly wouldn't need any aid for calculation, would he? We humans must use a piece of paper to multiply two ten-digit numbers together, but that's because our memories are faulty. A Nipe has no need for such aids."