“Are you sure?” asked Hawthorne.

  “What?”

  “How do you know the cetoids have not learned our alphabet off those slates?”

  “Well…after all—”

  “They might have good reasons for not wanting to take a grease pencil in their jaws and scribble messages back to us. A degree of wariness, perhaps. Let’s face it, Cap. We’re the aliens here, the monsters. Or maybe they simply aren’t interested: our vessels are fun to play with, our goods amusing enough to be worth trading for, but we ourselves seem drab. Or, of course—and I think this is the most probable explanation—our minds are too strange. Consider the two planets, how different they are. How alike would you expect the thinking of two wholly different races to be?”

  “An interesting speculation,” said Jevons. “Not new, of course.”

  “Well, I’ll go set out the latest gadgets for them,” said. Hawthorne. He walked a few paces, then stopped and turned around.

  “You know,” he said, “I’m being a fool. Oscar did communicate with us, only last evening. A perfectly unambiguous message, in the form of a firegem.”

  -4-

  Hawthorne went past a heavy machine gun, loaded with explosive slugs. He despised the rule that an entire arsenal must always be kept ready. When had Venus ever threatened men with anything but the impersonal consequences of ignorance?

  He continued on along the trading pier. Its metal gleamed, nearly awash. Basketlike containers had been lowered overnight, with standard goods. These included recordings and pictures the cetoids already knew, but always seemed to want more of. Did each individual desire some, or did they distribute these things around their world, in the undersea equivalent of museums or libraries?

  Then there were the little plastic containers of sodium chloride, aqua ammonia, and other materials, whose taste the cetoids apparently enjoyed. Lacking continents to leach out, the Venusian ocean was less mineralized than Earth’s, and these chemicals were exotic. Nevertheless the cetoids had refused plastibulbs of certain compounds, such as the permanganates—and later biochemical research had shown that these were poisonous to Venusian life.

  But how had the cetoids known that, without ever crushing a bulb between teeth? They just knew, that was all. Human senses and human science didn’t exhaust all the information in the cosmos. The standard list of goods had come to include a few toys, like floating balls, which the cetoids used for some appallingly rough games; and specially devised dressings, to put on injuries…

  Oh, nobody doubted that Oscar was much more intelligent than a chimpanzee, thought Hawthorne. The problem had always been, was he as highly intelligent as a man?

  He pulled up the baskets and took out the equally standardized payments which had been left in them. There were firegems, small and perfect or large and flawed. One was both big and faultless, like a round drop of rainbow. There were particularly beautiful specimens of coralite, which would be made into ornaments on Earth, and several kinds of exquisite shell.

  There were specimens of marine life for study, most of them never before seen by Man. How many million species would an entire planet hold? There were a few tools, lost overboard, and only now freed of ooze by shifting currents; a lump of something unidentifiable, light and yellow and greasy to the touch, perhaps a biological product like ambergris, possibly only of slight interest and possibly offering a clue to an entire new field of chemistry. The plunder of a world rattled into Hawthorne’s collection boxes.

  All novelties had a fixed, rather small value. If the humans took the next such offering, its price would go up, and so on until a stable fee was reached, not too steep for the Earthmen or too low to be worth the cetoids’ trouble. It was amazing how detailed a bargain you could strike without language.

  Hawthorne looked down at Oscar. The big fellow had nosed up close to the pier and now lay idly swinging his tail. The blue sheen along his upcurved back was lovely to watch.

  “You know,” murmured Hawthorne, “for years all Earth has been chortling over your giving us such nearly priceless stuff for a few cheaply made geegaws. But I’ve begun to wonder if it isn’t reciprocal. Just how rare are firegems on Venus?”

  Oscar spouted a little and rolled a wickedly gleaming eye. A curious expression crossed his face. Doubtless one would be very unscientific to call it a grin. But Hawthorne felt sure that a grin was what Oscar intended.

  “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Now let’s see what you think of our gr-r-reat new products, brought to you after years of research for better living. Each and every one of these products, ladies and gentle-cetoids, has been tested in our spotless laboratories, and don’t think it was easy to test the patent spot remover in particular. Now—”

  The music bubbles of Schonberg had been rejected. Perhaps other atonalists would be liked, but with spaceship mass ratios what they were, the experiment wasn’t going to be done for a long time. On the other hand, a tape of traditional Japanese songs was gone and a two-carat gem had been left, twice the standard price for a novelty: in effect, some cetoid was asking for more of the same.

  As usual, every contemporary pictorial artist was refused, but then, Hawthorne agreed they were not to his taste either. Nor did any cetoid want Picasso (middle period), but Mondrian and Matisse had gone well. A doll had been accepted at low valuation, a mere bit of mineral: “Okay, we (I?) will take just this one sample, but don’t bother bringing any more.”

  Once again, the waterproof illustrated books had been rejected; the cetoids had never bought books, after the first few. It was an idiosyncrasy, among others, which had led many researchers to doubt their essential basic intelligence and perception.

  That doesn’t follow, thought Hawthorne. They haven’t got hands, so a printed text isn’t natural for them. Because of sheer beauty—or interest, or humor, or whatever they get out of it—some of our best art is worth the trouble of carrying underwater and preserving. But if they’re looking for a factual record, they may well have more suitable methods. Such as what? God knows. Maybe they have perfect memories. Maybe, by sheer telepathy or something, they build their messages into the crystal structure of stones on the ocean bed.

  Oscar bustled along the pier, following the man. Hawthorne squatted down and rubbed the cetoid’s smooth wet brow. “Hey, what do you think about me?” he asked aloud. “Do you wonder if I think? All right. All right. My breed came down from the sky and built floating metal settlements and brought all sorts of curious goodies. But ants and termites have pretty intricate behavior patterns, and you’ve got similar things on Venus.”

  Oscar snorted and nosed Hawthorne’s ankles. Out in the water, his people were playing, and foam burned white against purple where they arched skyward and came down again. Still further out, on the hazy edge of vision, a few adults were at work, rounding up a school of “fish” with the help of three tame (?) species. They seemed to be enjoying the task.

  “You have no right to be as smart as you are, Oscar,” said Hawthorne. “Intelligence is supposed to evolve in response to a rapidly changing environment, and the sea isn’t supposed to be changeable enough. Well, maybe the Terrestrial sea isn’t. But this is Venus, and what do we know about Venus? Tell me, Oscar, are your dog-type and cattle-type fish just dull-witted animal slaves like the aphids kept by ants, or are they real domestic animals, consciously trained? It’s got to be the latter. I’ll continue to insist it is, until ants develop a fondness for van Gogh and Beiderbecke.”

  Oscar sounded, drenching Hawthorne with carbonated sea water. It foamed spectacularly, and tingled on his skin. A small wind crossed the world, puffing the wetness out of his garments. He sighed. The cetoids were like children, never staying put—another reason why so many psychologists rated them only a cut above Terrestrial apes.

  A logically unwarranted conclusion, to say the least. At the quick pace of Venusian life, urgent business might well arise on a second’s notice. Or, even if the cetoids were merely being capricious, were they stupid on that account? Man was a heavy-footed beast, who forgot how to play if he was not always being reminded. Here on Venus there might just naturally be more joy in living.

  I shouldn’t run down my own species the way I do, thought Hawthorne. “All centuries but this and every country but his own.” We’re different from Oscar, that’s all. But by the same token, is he any worse than us?

  He turned his mind to the problem of designing a saw which a cetoid could handle. Handle? Manipulate? Not when a mouth was all you had! If the species accepted such tools in trade, it would go a long way toward proving them comparable to man. And if they didn’t, it would only show that they had other desires, not necessarily inferior ones.

  Quite conceivably, Oscar’s race was more intellectual than mankind. Why not? Their bodies and their environment debarred them from such material helps as fire, chipped stone, forged metal, or pictograms. But might this not force their minds into subtler channels? A race of philosophers, unable to talk to Man because it had long ago forgotten baby talk…

  Sure, it was a far-fetched hypothesis. But the indisputable fact remained, Oscar was far more than a clever animal, even if he was not on a level with Man.

  Yet, if Oscar’s people had evolved to, say, the equivalent of Pithecanthropus, they had done so because something in Venusian conditions had put a premium on intelligence. The same factor should continue to operate. In another half-million years or so, almost certainly, the cetoids would have as much brain and soul as Man today. (And Man himself might be extinct, or degraded.) Maybe more soul—more sense of beauty and mercy and laughter—if you extrapolated their present behavior.

  In short, Oscar was (a) already equal to Man, or (b) already beyond Man, or (c) on the way up, and his descendants would in time achieve (a) and then (b). Welcome, my brother!

  The pier quivered. Hawthorne glanced down again. Oscar had returned. He was nosing the metal impatiently and making gestures with his foreflipper. Hawthorne went over and looked at him. Oscar curved up his tail and whacked his own back, all the time beckoning.

  “Hey, wait!” Hawthorne got the idea. He hoped. “Wait, do you want me to come for a ride?” he asked.

  The cetoid blinked both eyes. Was the blink the counterpart of a nod? And if so, had Oscar actually understood the English words?

  Hawthorne hurried off to the oxygen electrolyzer. Skindiving equipment was stored in the locker beside it. He wriggled into the flexible, heat-retaining Long John. Holding his breath, he unclipped his mask from the tank and air mixer he wore, and put on a couple of oxynitro flasks instead, thus converting it to an aqualung.

  For a moment he hesitated. Should he inform Jevons, or at least take the collection boxes inside? No, to hell with it! This wasn’t Earth, where you couldn’t leave an empty beer bottle unwatched without having it stolen. Oscar might lose patience. The Venusian—damn it, he would call them that, and the devil take scientific caution!—had rescued distressed humans, but never before had offered a ride without utilitarian purpose. Hawthorne’s pulse beat loudly.

  He ran back. Oscar lay level with the pier. Hawthorne straddled him, grasping a small cervical fin and leaning back against the muscular dorsal. The long body glided from the station. Water rippled sensuously around Hawthorne’s bare feet. Where his face was not masked, the wind was fresh upon it. Oscar’s flukes churned up foam like a snowstorm.

  Low overhead there scudded rain clouds, and lightning veined the west. A small polypoid went by, its keel fin submerged, its iridescent membrane-sail driving it on a broad reach. A nearby cetoid slapped the water with his tail in a greeting.

  The motion was so smooth that Hawthorne was finally startled to glance behind and see the station five miles off. Then Oscar submerged.

  Hawthorne had done a lot of skin-diving, as well as more extensive work in submarines or armor. He was not surprised by the violet clarity of the first yards, nor the rich darkening as he went on down. The glowfish which passed him like rainbow comets were familiar. But he had never before felt the living play of muscles between his thighs; suddenly he knew why a few wealthy men on Earth still kept horses.

  When he was in cool, silent, absolute blackness, he felt Oscar begin to travel. Almost, he was tom off by the stream; he lost himself in the sheer exhilaration of hanging on. With other senses than vision he was aware how they twisted through caves and canyons in buried mountains. An hour had passed when light glowed before him, a spark. It took another half hour to reach its source.

  He had often seen luminous coralite banks. But never this one. It lay not far from the station as Venusian distances went, but even a twenty-mile radius sweeps out a big territory and men had not chanced by here. And the usual reef was a good bit like its Terrestrial counterpart, a ragged jumble of spires, bluffs, and grottos, eerie but unorganized beauty.

  Here, the coralite was shaped. A city of merfolk opened up before Hawthorne.

  Afterward he did not remember just how it looked. The patterns were so strange that his mind was not trained to register them. He knew there were delicate fluted columns, arched chambers with arabesque walls, a piling of clean masses at one spot and a Gothic humoresque elsewhere. He saw towers enspiraled like a narwhal’s tusk, arches and buttresses of fragile filigree, an overall unity of pattern at once as light as spindrift and as strong as the world-circling tide, immense, complex, and serene.

  A hundred species of coralite, each with its own distinctive glow, were blended to make the place, so that there was a subtle play of color, hot reds and icy blues and living greens and yellows, against ocean black. And from some source, he never knew what, came a thin crystal sound, a continuous contrapuntal symphony which he did not understand but which recalled to him frost flowers on the windows of his childhood home.

  Oscar let him swim about freely and look. He saw a few other cetoids, also drifting along, often accompanied by young. But plainly, they didn’t live here. Was this a memorial, an art gallery, or—Hawthorne didn’t know. The place was huge, it reached farther downward than he could see, farther than he could go before pressure killed him, at least half a mile straight down to the sea bottom. Yet this miraculous place had never been fashioned for any “practical” reason. Or had it? Perhaps the Venusians recognized what Earth had forgotten, though the ancient Greeks had known it—that the contemplation of beauty is essential to thinking life.

  The underwater blending of so much that was constructively beautiful could not be a freak of nature. But neither had it been carved out of some pre-existing mountain. No matter how closely he looked, and the flameless fire was adequate to see by, Hawthorne found no trace of chisel or mold. He could only decide that in some unknown way, Oscar’s people had grown this thing.

  He lost himself. It was Oscar who finally nudged him—a reminder that he had better go back before he ran out of air. When they reached the pier and Hawthorne had stepped off, Oscar nuzzled the man’s foot, very briefly, like a kiss, and then he sounded in a tremendous splash.

  -5-

  Toward the close of the forty-three-hour daylight period, the boats came straggling in. For most it had been a routine shift, a few dozen discoveries, books and instruments filled with data to be wrestled with and perhaps understood. The men landed wearily, unloaded their craft, stashed their findings and went off for food and rest. Later would come the bull sessions.

  Wim Dykstra and Jimmy Cheng-tung had returned earlier than most, with armfuls of recording meters. Hawthorne knew in a general way what they were doing. By seismographs, sonic probes, core studies, mineral analyses, measurements of temperature and radioactivity and a hundred other facets, they tried to understand the planet’s inner structure. It was part of an old enigma. Venus had 80% of Earth’s mass, and the chemical composition was nearly identical.

  The two planets should have been sisters. Instead, the Venusian magnetic field was so weak that iron compasses were useless; the surface was so nearly smooth that no land rose above the water; volcanic and seismic activity were not only less, but showed unaccountably different patterns, lava flows and shock waves here had their own laws; the rocks were of odd types and distributions. And there was a galaxy of other technicalities which Hawthorne did not pretend to follow.

  Jevons had remarked that in the past weeks Dykstra had been getting more and more excited about something. The Dutchman was the cautious type of scientist, who said never a word about his results until they were nailed down past argument. He had been spending Earthdays on end in calculations. When someone finally insisted on a turn at the computer, Dykstra often continued figuring with a pencil. One gathered he was well on the way to solving the geological problem of Venus.

  “Or aphroditological?” Jevons had murmured. “But I know Wim. There’s more behind this than curiosity, or a chance at glory. Wim has something very big afoot, and very close to his heart. I hope it won’t take him too long!”

  Today Dykstra had rushed downstairs and sworn nobody would get at the computer until he was through. Cheng-tung hung around for a while, brought him sandwiches, and finally wandered up on deck with the rest of the station to watch Shorty McClellan come in again.

  Hawthorne sought him out. “Hey, Jimmy,” he said.

  “You don’t have to keep up that mysterious act. You’re among friends.”

  The Chinese grinned. “I have not the right to speak,” he said. “I am only the apprentice. When I have my own doctorate, then you will hear me chatter till you wish I’d learn some Oriental inscrutability.”

  “Yes, but hell, it’s obvious what you’re doing in general outline,” said Hawthorne. “I understand Wim has been calculating in advance what sort of data he ought to get if his theory is sound. Now he’s reducing those speculative assumptions for comparison. So okay, what is his theory?”

  “There is nothing secret about its essence,” said Cheng-tung. “It is only a confirmation of a hypothesis made more than a hundred years ago, before anyone had even left Earth. The idea is that Venus has a core unlike our planet’s, and that this accounts for the gross differences we’ve observed.