Fletcher decided to see what was going on. He started for the door.

  Chrystal’s face went stiff and cold. “Sam, I’m warning you, don’t go out there!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I say so.”

  Fletcher slid open the door; Chrystal made a motion to jump up from his chair; then he slowly sank back.

  Fletcher walked out the door, crossed the deck toward the barge.

  A man in the process house saw him through the window, and made urgent gestures.

  Fletcher hesitated, then turned to look at the barge. A couple more steps and he could look into the hold. He stepped forward, craned his neck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the gestures becoming frantic. The man disappeared from the window.

  The hold was full of limp white dekabrachs.

  “Get back, you fool!” came a yell from the process house.

  Perhaps a faint sound warned Fletcher; instead of backing away, he threw himself to the deck. A small object flipped over his head from the direction of the ocean, with a peculiar fluttering buzz. It struck a bulkhead, dropped — a fishlike torpedo, with a long needlelike proboscis. It came flapping toward Fletcher, who rose to his feet and ran crouching and dodging back toward the office.

  Two more of the fishlike darts missed him by inches; Fletcher hurled himself through the door into the office.

  Chrystal had not moved from the desk. Fletcher went panting up to him. “Pity I didn’t get stuck, isn’t it?”

  “I warned you not to go out there.”

  Fletcher turned to look across the deck. The barge-handlers ran down the troughlike gangway to the process house. A glittering school of dart-fish flickered up out of the water, struck at the plywood.

  Fletcher turned back to Chrystal. “I saw dekabrachs in that barge. Hundreds of them.”

  Chrystal had regained whatever composure he had lost. “Well? What if there are?”

  “You know they’re intelligent as well as I do.”

  Chrystal smilingly shook his head.

  Fletcher’s temper was going raw. “You’re ruining Sabria for all of us!”

  Chrystal held up his hand. “Easy, Sam. Fish are fish.”

  “Not when they’re intelligent and kill men in retaliation.”

  Chrystal wagged his head. “Are they intelligent?”

  Fletcher waited until he could control his voice. “Yes. They are.”

  Chrystal reasoned with him. “How do you know they are? Have you talked with them?”

  “Naturally I haven’t talked with them.”

  “They display a few social patterns. So do seals.”

  Fletcher came up closer, glared down at Chrystal. “I’m not going to argue definitions with you. I want you to stop hunting dekabrach, because you’re endangering lives aboard both our rafts.”

  Chrystal leaned back a trifle. “Now, Sam, you know you can’t intimidate me.”

  “You’ve killed two men; I’ve escaped by inches three times now. I’m not running that kind of risk to put money in your pocket.”

  “You’re jumping to conclusions,” Chrystal protested. “In the first place you’ve never proved —”

  “I’ve proved enough! You’ve got to stop, that’s all there is to it!”

  Chrystal slowly shook his head. “I don’t see how you’re going to stop me, Sam.” He brought his hand up from under the desk; it held a small gun. “Nobody’s going to bulldoze me, not on my own raft.”

  Fletcher reacted instantly, taking Chrystal by surprise. He grabbed Chrystal’s wrist, banged it against the angle of the desk. The gun flashed, seared a groove in the desk, fell from Chrystal’s limp fingers to the floor. Chrystal hissed and cursed, bent to recover it, but Fletcher leaped over the desk, pushed him over backward in his chair. Chrystal kicked up at Fletcher’s face, caught him a glancing blow on the cheek that sent Fletcher to his knees.

  Both men dived for the gun; Fletcher reached it first, rose to his feet, backed to the wall. “Now we know where we stand.”

  “Put down that gun!”

  Fletcher shook his head. “I’m putting you under arrest — civilian arrest. You’re coming to Bio-Minerals until the inspector arrives.”

  Chrystal seemed dumbfounded. “What?”

  “I said I’m taking you to the Bio-Minerals raft. The inspector is due in three weeks, and I’ll turn you over to him.”

  “You’re crazy, Fletcher.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m taking no chances with you.” Fletcher motioned with the gun. “Get going. Out to the copter.”

  Chrystal coolly folded his arms. “I’m not going to move. You can’t scare me by waving a gun.”

  Fletcher raised his arm, sighted, pulled the trigger. The jet of fire grazed Chrystal’s rump. Chrystal jumped, clapped his hand to the scorch.

  “Next shot will be somewhat closer,” said Fletcher.

  Chrystal glared like a boar from a thicket. “You realize I can bring kidnaping charges against you?”

  “I’m not kidnaping you. I’m placing you under arrest.”

  “I’ll sue Bio-Minerals for everything they’ve got.”

  “Unless Bio-Minerals sues you first. Get going!”

  The entire crew met the helicopter: Damon, Blue Murphy, Manners, Hans Heinz, Mahlberg and Dave Jones.

  Chrystal jumped haughtily to the deck, surveyed the men with whom he had once worked. “I’ve got something to say to you men.”

  The crew watched him silently.

  Chrystal jerked his thumb at Fletcher. “Sam’s got himself in a peck of trouble. I told him I’m going to throw the book at him and that’s what I’m going to do.” He looked from face to face. “If you men help him, you’ll be accessories. I advise you, take that gun away from him and fly me back to my raft.”

  He looked around the circle, but met only coolness and hostility. He shrugged angrily. “Very well, you’ll be liable for the same penalties as Fletcher. Kidnaping is a serious crime, don’t forget.”

  Murphy asked Fletcher, “What shall we do with the varmint?”

  “Put him in Carl’s room; that’s the best place for him. Come on, Chrystal.”

  Back in the mess hall, after locking the door on Chrystal, Fletcher told the crew, “I don’t need to tell you — be careful of Chrystal. He’s tricky. Don’t talk to him. Don’t run any errands of any kind. Call me if he wants anything. Everybody got that straight?”

  Damon asked dubiously, “Aren’t we getting in rather deep water?”

  “Do you have an alternative suggestion?” asked Fletcher. “I’m certainly willing to listen.”

  Damon thought. “Wouldn’t he agree to stop hunting dekabrach?”

  “No. He refused point-blank.”

  “Well,” said Damon reluctantly, “I guess we’re doing the right thing. But we’ve got to prove a criminal charge. The inspector won’t care whether or not Chrystal’s cheated Bio-Minerals.”

  Fletcher said, “If there’s any backfire on this, I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “Nonsense,” said Murphy. “We’re all in this together. I say you did just right. In fact, we ought to hand the sculpin over to the deks, and see what they’d say to him.”

  After a few minutes Fletcher and Damon went up to the laboratory to look at the captive dekabrach. It floated quietly in the center of the tank, the ten arms at right angles to its body, the black eye-area staring through the glass.

  “If it’s intelligent,” said Fletcher, “it must be as interested in us as we are in it.”

  “I’m not so sure it’s intelligent,” said Damon stubbornly. “Why doesn’t it try to communicate?”

  “I hope the inspector doesn’t think along the same lines,” said Fletcher. “After all, we don’t have an air-tight case against Chrystal.”

  Damon looked worried. “Bevington isn’t a very imaginative man. In fact, he’s rather official in his outlook.”

  Fletcher and the dekabrach examined each other. “I know it’s intelligent — but how can I prove it?”

  “If it’s intelligent,” Damon insisted doggedly, “it can communicate.”

  “If it can’t,” said Fletcher, “then it’s our move.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ll have to teach it.”

  Damon’s expression became so perplexed and worried that Fletcher broke into laughter.

  “I don’t see what’s funny,” Damon complained. “After all, what you propose is … well, it’s unprecedented.”

  “I suppose it is,” said Fletcher. “But it’s got to be done, nevertheless. How’s your linguistic background?”

  “Very limited.”

  “Mine is even more so.”

  They stood looking at the dekabrach.

  “Don’t forget,” said Damon, “we’ve got to keep it alive. That means, we’ve got to feed it.” He gave Fletcher a caustic glance. “I suppose you’ll admit it eats.”

  “I know for sure it doesn’t live by photosynthesis,” said Fletcher. “There’s just not enough light. I believe Chrystal mentioned on the micro-film that it ate coral fungus. Just a minute.” He started for the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To check with Chrystal. He’s certainly noted their stomach contents.”

  “He won’t tell you,” Damon said at Fletcher’s back.

  Fletcher returned ten minutes later.

  “Well?” asked Damon in a skeptical voice.

  Fletcher looked pleased with himself. “Coral fungus, mostly. Bits of tender young kelp shoots, stylax worms, sea-oranges.”

  “Chrystal told you all this?” asked Damon incredulously.

  “That’s right. I explained to him that he and the dekabrach were both our guests, that we planned to treat them exactly alike. If the dekabrach ate well, so would Chrystal. That was all he needed.”

  Later, Fletcher and Damon stood in the laboratory watching the dekabrach ingest black-green balls of fungus.

  “Two days,” said Damon sourly, “and what have we accomplished? Nothing.”

  Fletcher was less pessimistic. “We’ve made progress in a negative sense. We’re pretty sure it has no auditory apparatus, that it doesn’t react to sound, and apparently lacks means for making sound. Therefore, we’ve got to use visual methods to make contact.”

  “I envy you your optimism,” Damon declared. “The beast has given no grounds to suspect either the capacity or the desire for communication.”

  “Patience,” said Fletcher. “It still probably doesn’t know what we’re trying to do, and probably fears the worst.”

  “We not only have to teach it a language,” grumbled Damon, “we’ve got to introduce it to the idea that communication is possible. And then invent a language.”

  Fletcher grinned. “Let’s get to work.”

  “Certainly,” said Damon. “But how?”

  They inspected the dekabrach, and the black eye-area stared back through the wall of the tank. “We’ve got to work out a set of visual conventions,” said Fletcher. “The ten arms are its most sensitive organs, and presumably are controlled by the most highly organized section of its brain. So — we work out a set of signals based on the dek’s arm movements.”

  “Does that give us enough scope?”

  “I should think so. The arms are flexible tubes of muscle. They can assume at least five distinct positions: straight forward, diagonal forward, perpendicular, diagonal back, and straight back. Since the beast has ten arms, evidently there are ten to the fifth power combinations — a hundred thousand.”

  “Certainly adequate.”

  “It’s our job to work out syntax and vocabulary — a little difficult for an engineer and a biochemist, but we’ll have a go at it.”

  Damon was becoming interested in the project. “It’s merely a matter of consistency and sound basic structure. If the dek’s got any comprehension whatever, we’ll put it across.”

  “If we don’t,” said Fletcher, “we’re gone geese — and Chrystal winds up taking over the Bio-Minerals raft.”

  They seated themselves at the laboratory table.

  “We have to assume that the deks have no language,” said Fletcher.

  Damon grumbled uncertainly, and ran his fingers through his hair in annoyed confusion. “Not proven. Frankly, I don’t think it’s even likely. We can argue back and forth about whether theycould get along on communal empathy, and such like — but that’s a couple of light-years from answering the question whether they do.

  “They could be using telepathy, as we said; they could also be emitting modulated X-rays, establishing long-and-short code-signals in some unknown-to-us subspace, hyperspace, or interspace — they could be doing almost anything we never heard of.

  “As I see it, our best bet — and best hope — is that they do have some form of encoding system by which they communicate between themselves. Obviously, as you know, they have to have an internal coding-and-communication system; that’s what a neuromuscular structure, with feedback loops, is. Any complex organism has to have communication internally. The whole point of this requirement of language as a means of classifying alien life forms is to distinguish between true communities of individual thinking entities, and the communal insect type of apparent-intelligence.

  “Now, if they’ve got an ant- or bee-like city over there, we’re sunk, and Chrystal wins. You can’t teach an ant to talk; the nest-group has intelligence, but the individual doesn’t.

  “So we’ve got to assume they do have a language — or, to be more general, a formalized encoding system for intercommunication.

  “We can also assume it uses a pathway not available to our organisms. That sound sensible to you?”

  Fletcher nodded. “Call it a working hypothesis, anyway. We know we haven’t seen any indication the dek has tried to signal us.”

  “Which suggests the creature is not intelligent.”

  Fletcher ignored the comment. “If we knew more about their habits, emotions, attitudes, we’d have a better framework for this new language.”

  “It seems placid enough.”

  The dekabrach moved its arms back and forth idly. The visual-surface studied the two men.

  “Well,” said Fletcher with a sigh, “first, a system of notation.” He brought forward a model of the dekabrach’s head, which Manners had constructed. The arms were of flexible conduit, and could be bent into various positions. “We number the arms 0 to 9 around the clock, starting with this one here at the top. The five positions — forward, diagonal forward, erect, diagonal back, and back — we call A, B, K, X, Y. K is normal position, and when an arm is at K, it won’t be noted.”

  Damon nodded his agreement. “That’s sound enough.”

  “The logical first step would seem to be numbers.”

  Together they worked out a system of numeration, and constructed a chart:

  Damon said, “It’s consistent — but possibly cumbersome; for instance, to indicate five thousand, seven hundred sixty-six, it’s necessary to make the signal … let’s see: 0B, 5Y, then 0X, 7Y, then 0Y, 6Y, then 6Y.”

  “Don’t forget that these are signals, not vocalizations,” said Fletcher. “Even so, it’s no more cumbersome than ‘five thousand, seven hundred and sixty-six’.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Now — words.”

  Damon leaned back in his chair. “We just can’t build a vocabulary and call it a language.”

  “I wish I knew more linguistic theory,” said Fletcher. “Naturally, we won’t go into any abstractions.”

  “Our basic English structure might be a good idea,” Damon mused, “with English parts of speech. That is, nouns are things, adjectives are attributes of things, verbs are the displacements which things undergo, or the absence of displacement.”

  Fletcher reflected. “We could simplify even further, to nouns, verbs and verbal modifiers.”

  “Is that feasible? How, for instance, would you say ‘the large raft’?”

  “We’d use a verb meaning ‘to grow big’. ‘Raft expanded’. Something like that.”

  “Humph,” grumbled Damon. “You don’t envisage a very expressive language.”

  “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be. Presumably the deks will modify whatever we give them to suit their own needs. If we get across just a basic set of ideas, they’ll take it from there. Or by that time someone’ll be out here who knows what he’s doing.”

  “O.K.,” said Damon, “get on with your Basic Dekabrach.”

  “First, let’s list the ideas a dek would find useful and familiar.”

  “I’ll take the nouns,” said Damon. “You take the verbs; you can also have your modifiers.” He wrote, ‘No. 1: water.’

  After considerable discussion and modification, a sparse list of basic nouns and verbs was agreed upon, and assigned signals.

  The simulated dekabrach head was arranged before the tank, with a series of lights on a board nearby to represent numbers.

  “With a coding machine we could simply type out our message,” said Damon. “The machine would dictate the impulses to the arms of the model.”

  Fletcher agreed. “Fine, if we had the equipment and several weeks to tinker around with it. Too bad we don’t. Now — let’s start. The numbers first. You work the lights, I’ll move the arms. Just one to nine for now.”

  Several hours passed. The dekabrach floated quietly, the black eye-spot observing.

  Feeding time approached. Damon displayed the black-green fungus balls; Fletcher arranged the signal for ‘food’ on the arms of the model. A few morsels were dropped into the tank.

  The dekabrach quietly sucked them into its oral tube.

  Damon went through the pantomime of offering food to the model. Fletcher moved the arms to the signal ‘food’. Damon ostentatiously placed the fungus ball in the model’s oral tube, then faced the tank, and offered food to the dekabrach.

  The dekabrach watched impassively.

  Two weeks passed. Fletcher went up to Raight’s old room to talk to Chrystal, whom he found reading a book from the micro-film library.

  Chrystal extinguished the image of the book, swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up.