Rough Translation

  Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net

  Transcriber's Note:

  This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction December 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

  Rough Translation

  By JEAN M. JANIS

  Illustrated by Hunter

  Don't be ashamed if you can't blikkel any more. It's because you couldn't help framishing.

  * * * * *

  "Shurgub," said the tape recorder. "Just like I told you before, Dr.Blair, it's krandoor, so don't expect to vrillipax, because they justwon't stand for any. They'd sooner framish."

  "Framish?" Jonathan heard his own voice played back by the recorder,tinny and slightly nasal. "What is that, Mr. Easton?"

  "_You_ know. Like when you guttip. Carooms get awfully bevvergrit.Why, I saw one actually--"

  "Let's go back a little, shall we?" Jonathan suggested. "What doesshurgub mean?"

  There was a pause while the machine hummed and the recorder tapewhirred. Jonathan remembered the look on Easton's face when he hadasked him that. Easton had pulled away slightly, mouth open, eyeshurt.

  "Why--why, I _told_ you!" he had shouted. "Weeks ago! What's thematter? Don't you blikkel English?"

  Jonathan Blair reached out and snapped the switch on the machine.Putting his head in his hands, he stared down at the top of his desk.

  You learned Navajo in six months, he reminded himself fiercely.

  You are a highly skilled linguist. What's the matter? Don't youblikkel English?

  * * * * *

  He groaned and started searching through his briefcase for the reportsfrom Psych. Easton must be insane. He must! Ramirez says it's nolanguage. Stoughton says it's no language. And _I_, Jonathan thoughtsavagely, say it's no language.

  But--

  Margery tiptoed into the study with a tray.

  "But Psych," he continued aloud to her, "Psych says it _must_ be alanguage because, they say, Easton is _not_ insane!"

  "Oh, dear," sighed Margery, blinking her pale blue eyes. "That again?"She set his coffee on the desk in front of him. "Poor Jonathan. Whydoesn't the Institute give up?"

  "Because they can't." He reached for the cup and sat glaring at thesteaming coffee.

  "Well," said his wife, settling into the leather chair beside him,"_I_ certainly would. My goodness, it's been over a month now since hecame back, and you haven't learned a thing from him!"

  "Oh, we've learned some. And this morning, for the first time, Eastonhimself began to seem puzzled by a few of the things he was saying.He's beginning to use terms we can understand. He's coming around. Andif I could only find some clue--some sort of--"

  Margery snorted. "It's just plain foolish! I knew the Institute wasasking for trouble when they sent the _Rhinestead_ off. How do theyknow Easton ever got to Mars, anyway? Maybe he did away with thoseother men, cruised around, and then came back to Earth with thismade-up story just so he could seem to be a hero and--"

  "That's nonsense!"

  "Why?" she demanded stubbornly. "Why is it?"

  "Because the _Rhinestead_ was tracked, for one thing, on both flights,to and from Mars. Moonbase has an indisputable record of it. Andbesides, the instruments on the ship itself show--" He found thereport he had been searching for. "Oh, never mind."

  "All right," she said defiantly. "Maybe he did get to Mars. Maybe hedid away with the crew after he got there. He knew the ship was builtso that one man could handle it in an emergency. Maybe he--"

  "Look," said Jonathan patiently. "He didn't do anything of the sort.Easton has been checked so thoroughly that it's impossible to assumeanything except, (a) he is sane, (b) he reached Mars and made contactwith the Martians, (c) this linguistic barrier is a result of thatcontact."

  * * * * *

  Margery shook her head, sucking in her breath. "When I think of allthose fine young men," she murmured. "Heaven only knows what happenedto them!"

  "You," Jonathan accused, "have been reading thatcolumnist--what's-his-name? The one that's been writing such claptrapever since Easton brought the _Rhinestead_ back alone."

  "Cuddlehorn," said his wife. "Roger Cuddlehorn, and it's notclaptrap."

  "The other members of the crew are all alive, all--"

  "I suppose Easton told you that?" she interrupted.

  "Yes, he did."

  "Using double-talk, of course," said his wife triumphantly. At thelook on Jonathan's face, she stood up in guilty haste. "All right,I'll go!" She blew him a kiss from the door. "Richie and I are havinglunch at one. Okay? Or would you rather have a tray in here?"

  "Tray," he said, turning back to his desk and his coffee. "No, onsecond thought, call me when lunch is ready. I'll need a break."

  He was barely conscious of the closing of the door as Margery left theroom. Naturally he didn't take her remarks seriously, but--

  He opened the folder of pictures and studied them again, along withthe interpretations by Psych, Stoughton, Ramirez and himself.

  Easton had drawn the little stick figures on the first day of hisreturn. The interpretations all checked--and they had been doneindependently, too. There it is, thought Jonathan. Easton lands the_Rhinestead_. He and the others meet the Martians. They are impressedby the Martians. The others stay on Mars. Easton returns to Earth,bearing a message.

  Question: What is the message?

  Teeth set, Jonathan put away the pictures and went back to the tape onthe recorder. "Yes," said his own voice, in answer to Easton'soutburst. "I do--er--blikkel English. But tell me, Mr. Easton, do youunderstand me?"

  "Under-stand?" The man seemed to have difficulty forming the word."You mean--" Pause. "Dr. Blair, I murv you. Is that it?"

  "Murv," repeated Jonathan. "All right, you murv me. Do you murv this?I do not always murv what you say."

  A laugh. "Of course not. How could you?" Suppressed groan. "Carooms,"Easton had murmured, almost inaudibly. "Just when I almost murv, thekwakut goes freeble."

  Jonathan flipped the switch on the machine. "Murv" he wrote on hispad of paper. He added "Blikkel," "Carooms" and "Freeble." He staredat the list. He should understand, he thought. At times it seemed asif he did and then, in the next instant, he was lost again, and Eastonwas angry, and they had to start all over again.

  * * * * *

  Sighing, he took out more papers, notes from previous sessions, bothwith himself and with other linguists. The difficulty of reachingEaston was unlike anything he had ever before tackled. The six monthsof Navajo had been rough going, but he had done it, and done it wellenough to earn the praise of Old Comas, his informant. Surely, hethought, after mastering a language like that, one in which thestudent must not only learn to imitate difficult sounds, but alsolearn a whole new pattern of thought--

  Pattern of thought. Jonathan sat very still, as though movement wouldsend the fleeting clue back into the corner from which his mind hadglimpsed it.

  A whole new frame of reference. Suppose, he toyed with the thought,suppose the Martian language, whatever it was, was structured alongthe lines of Navajo, involving clearly defined categories which didnot exist in English.

  "Murv," he said aloud. "I murv a lesson, but I blikkel a language."

  Eagerly, Jonathan reached again for the switch. Categories clearlydefined, yes! But the categories of the Martian language were notthose of the concrete or the particular, like the Navajo. They were ofthe abstract. Where one word "understand" would do
in English, theMartian used two--

  Good Lord, he realized, they might use hundreds! They might--

  Jonathan turned on the machine, sat back and made notes, letting therecorder run uninterrupted. He made his notes, this time, on thefeelings he received from the words Easton used. When the first tapewas done, he put on the second.

  Margery tapped at the door just as the third tape was ending. "In aminute," he called, scribbling furiously. He turned off the machine,put out his cigarette and went to lunch, feeling better than he had inweeks.

  Richie was at the kitchen sink, washing his hands.

  "And next time," Margery was saying, "you wash up before you sitdown."

  Richie blinked and watched Jonathan seat himself. "Daddy didn't washhis hands," he said.

  Margery fixed the six-year-old with a stern eye. "Richard, don't berude."

  "Well, he didn't." Richie sat down and reached for his glass of milk.

  "Daddy probably washed before he came in," said Margery. She took thecover off a tureen, ladled soup into bowls and passed sandwiches,pretending not to see the ink-stained hand Jonathan was hiding in hislap.

  Jonathan, elated by the promise of success, ate three or foursandwiches, had two bowls of soup and finally sat back while Margerywent to get coffee.

  Richie slid part way off his chair, remembered, and slid back onagain. "Kin I go?" he asked.

  "Please may I be excused," corrected his father.

  * * * * *

  Richie repeated, received a nod and ran out of the dinette and throughthe kitchen, grabbing a handful of cookies on the way. The screen doorbanged behind him as he raced into the backyard.

  "Richie!" Margery started after him, eyes ablaze. Then she stopped andcame back to the table with the coffee. "That boy! How long does ittake before they get to be civilized?" Jonathan laughed. "Oh, sure,"she went on, sitting down opposite him. "It's funny to you. But if youwere here all day long--" She stirred sugar into her cup. "We shouldhave sent him to camp, even if it would have wrecked the budget!"

  "Oh? Is it that bad?"

  Margery shuddered. "Sometimes he's a perfect angel, and then--It'sunbelievable, the things that child can think of! Sometimes I'mconvinced children are another species altogether! Why, only thismorning--"

  "Well," Jonathan broke in, "next summer he goes to camp." He stood upand stretched.

  Margery said wistfully, "I suppose you want to get back to work."

  "Ummmm." Jonathan leaned over and kissed her briefly. "I've got a newline of attack," he said, picking up his coffee. He patted his wife'sshoulder. "If things work out well, we might get away on that vacationsooner than we thought."

  "Really?" she asked, brightening.

  "Really." He left the table and went back to his den.

  Putting the next tape on the machine, he settled down to his job. Timepassed and finally there were no more tapes to listen to.

  He stacked his notes and began making lists, checking through thesheets of paper for repetitions of words Easton had used, listing thevarious connotations which had occurred to Jonathan while he hadlistened to the tapes.

  As he worked, he was struck by the similarity of the words he wasrecording to the occasional bits of double-talk he had heard used bycomedians in theaters and on the air, and he allowed his mind towander a bit, exploring the possibilities.

  Was Martian actually such a close relative to English? Or had theMartians learned English from Easton, and had Easton then formed asort of pidgin-English-Martian of his own?

  Jonathan found it difficult to believe in the coincidence of the twolanguages being alike, unless--

  He laughed. Unless, of course, Earthmen were descended from Martians,or vice versa. Oh, well, not my problem, he thought jauntily.

  * * * * *

  He stared at the list before him and then he started to swear, softlyat first, then louder. But no matter how loudly he swore, the listremained undeniably and obstinately the same:

  Freeble--Displeasure (Tape 3)

  Freeble--Elation (Tape 4)

  Freeble--Grief (Tape 5)

  "How," he asked the empty room, "can a word mean grief and elation atthe same time?"

  Jonathan sat for a few moments in silence, thinking back to the startof the sessions with Easton. Ramirez and Stoughton had both agreedwith him that Easton's speech was phonemically identical to English.Jonathan's trained ear remembered the pronunciation of "Freeble" inthe three different connotations and he forced himself to admit it wasthe same on all three tapes in question.

  Stuck again, he thought gloomily.

  Good-by, vacation!

  He lit a cigarette and stared at the ceiling. It was like saying theword "die" meant something happy and something sad at one and thesame, like saying--

  Jonathan pursed his lips. Yes, it could be. If someone were interrible pain, death, while a thing of sorrow, could also mean releasefrom suffering and so become a thing of joy. Or it could mean sorrowto one person and relief to another. In that case, what he was dealingwith here was not only--

  The crash of the ball, as it sailed through the window behind hisdesk, lifted Jonathan right from his chair. Furious, his elusive clueshattered as surely as the pane of glass, he strode to the window.

  "Richie!"

  His son, almost hidden behind the lilac bush, did not answer.

  "I see you!" Jonathan bellowed. "Come here!"

  The bush stirred slightly and Richie peeped through the leaves. "Didyou call me, Daddy?" he asked politely.

  Jonathan clamped his lips shut and pointed to the den. Richie tried asmile as he sidled around the bush, around his father, and into thehouse.

  "My," he marveled, looking at the broken glass on the floor inside."My goodness!" He sat down in the leather chair to which Jonathanmotioned.

  "Richie," said his father, when he could trust his voice again, "howdid it happen?"

  His son's thin legs, brown and wiry, stuck out straight from thedepths of the chair. There was a long scratch on one calf and numerousblack-and-blue spots around both knees.

  "I dunno," said Richie. He blinked his eyes, deeper blue thanMargery's, and reached up one hand to push away the mass of blond hairtumbling over his forehead. He was obviously trying hard to pretend hewasn't in the room at all.

  * * * * *

  Jonathan said, "Now, son, that is not a good answer. What were youdoing when the ball went through the window?"

  "Watching," said Richie truthfully.

  "How did it _go_ through the window?"

  "Real fast."

  Jonathan found his teeth were clamped. No wonder he couldn't decodeEaston's speech--he couldn't even talk with his own son!

  "I mean," he explained, his patience wavering, "you threw the ball sothat it broke the window, didn't you?"

  "I didn't mean it to," said Richie.

  "All right. That's what I wanted to know." He started on a lectureabout respect for other people's property, while Richie sat and lookedblankly respectful. "And so," he heard himself conclude, "I hope we'llbe more careful in the future."

  "Yes," said Richie.

  A vague memory came to Jonathan and he sat and studied his son,remembering him when he was younger and first starting to talk. Herecalled the time Richie, age three, had come bustling up to him."Vransh!" the child had pleaded, tugging at his father's hand.Jonathan had gone outside with him to see a baby bird which had fallenfrom its nest. "Vransh!" Richie had crowed, exhibiting his find."Vransh!"

  "Do I get my spanking now?" asked Richie from the chair. His eyeswere wide and watchful.

  Jonathan tore his mind from still another recollection: the old jokeabout the man and woman who adopted a day-old French infant and thenstudied French so they would be able to understand their child when hebegan to talk. Maybe, thought Jonathan, it's no joke. Maybe there _is_a language--

  "Spanking?" he repeated absentmindedly. He took a fresh pencil and
padof paper. "How would you like to help with something, Richie?"

  The blue eyes watched carefully. "Before you spank me or after?"

  "No spanking." Jonathan glanced at the Easton notes, vaguely awarethat Richie had suddenly relaxed. "What I'm going to do," he went on,"is say some words. It'll be a kind of game. I'll say a word and thenyou say a word. You say the first word you think after you hear myword. Okay?" He cleared his throat. "Okay! The first word is--house."

  "_My_ house."

  "Bird," said Jonathan.

  "Uh--tree." Richie scratched his nose and stifled a yawn.

  * * * * *

  Disappointed, Jonathan reminded himself that Richie at six could notbe expected to remember something he had said when he was three."Dog."

  "Biffy." Richie sat up straight. "Daddy, did you know Biffy hadpuppies? Steve's mother showed me. Biffy had four puppies, Daddy._Four_!"

  Jonathan nodded. He supposed Richie's next statement would be anappeal to go next door and negotiate for one of the pups, and hehurried on with,