Stuart pointed to the screen. "Native just peeked out." He reached over toward one of the cephaloids, mindless brains with tremendous memory and associative power, and began flipping switches. Activating solution flowed through the micro-cellular colloid; little lights on a panel winked on as the surface potentials reached operating level.
The linguist glanced briefly at the screen. "I guess there's time to show you one of its little tricks, just to warm it up," he said. He sang, in Universal Speech, a couple of ribald verses of "The Venus of Venus," then touched a switch. Immediately the song came back at him through a little speaker, but in English—and with the unmistakable drawl of Rogers. "I conditioned it a few minutes ago with his voice," explained Stuart. He was delighted with Gordon's reaction of incredulous astonishment. "It's really a wonderful mechanism, Gordon. It—oops! There's a native!"
He jabbed hastily at the "Primary Condition" stud, erasing the song and the accent, and switched on the remote control for the picture sequence. He handed Gordon a headset. "Will you monitor the pickup, please? The rest of this stuff will keep me busy." He fell silent, watching the screen.
Gordon reached over and switched on the movie camera set up beside him to record the scene.
V
Three scarlet natives had come out of the cave. They stood in a patch of brilliant sunlight, swinging their middle limbs about and playing with a sassy little monkey-rat as men would with a fox terrier. At length they picked up what seemed to be a crossbow and several spears, slung bundles across their sloping shoulders, and started down the trail. They walked slowly, spears at the ready, and were obviously alert. Frequently they glanced up, or paused as if listening.
Rounding a turn, the lead native stopped abruptly, leaped back and dropped flat. The other two dropped almost simultaneously. The leader motioned cautiously for his companions to crawl forward; he pointed with a tentacular upper limb toward the picture sequence machine gleaming in the morning light. On it was showing a picture of a native, enlarged from Stuart's picture of his temporary "prisoner".
The semanticist had evidently made a good guess in alien psychology, for no hostile move was made toward the machine. The natives lay there studying it, making occasional guarded gestures to each other. They stiffened as the next picture flipped into view. It was a Terrestrial family with two children. It was the picture Stuart kept beside his bunk, and was the best thing he could think of to put across the concept of a peaceful people.
Still no hostile move. No sounds, either, except the background chirping and jabbering of other animals.