"Of course! Look! A plus sign is a hook, to hang things together; a minus sign is a knife, to cut something off from something--see, the little loop is the handle and the long pointed loop is the blade. Stylized, of course, but that's what it is. And the fourth element, kiradavas; what's that?" "Beryllium. Atomic weight given as nine-and-a-hook; actually it's nine-point-oh-two." Sid Chamberlain had been disgruntled because he couldn't get a story about the Martians having developed atomic energy. It took him a few minutes to understand the newest development, but finally it dawned on him. "Hey! You're reading that!" he cried. "You're reading Martian!" "That's right," Penrose told him. "Just reading it right off. I don't get the two items after the atomic weight, though. They look like months of the Martian calendar. What ought they to be, Mort?" * * * * * Tranter hesitated. "Well, the next information after the atomic weight ought to be the period and group numbers. But those are words." "What would the numbers be for the first one, hydrogen?" "Period One, Group One. One electron shell, one electron in the outer shell," Tranter told her. "Helium's period one, too, but it has the outer--only--electron shell full, so it's in the group of inert elements." "_Trav, Trav._ _Trav's_ the first month of the year. And helium's _Trav, Yenth_; _Yenth_ is the eighth month." "The inert elements could be called Group Eight, yes. And the third element, lithium, is Period Two, Group One. That check?" "It certainly does. _Sanv, Trav_; _Sanv's_ the second month. What's the first element in Period Three?" "Sodium. Number Eleven." That's right; it's _Krav, Trav_. Why, the names of the months are simply numbers, one to ten, spelled out. "_Doma_'s the fifth month. That was your first Martian word, Martha," Penrose told her. "The word for five. And if _davas_ is the word for metal, and _sornhulva_ is chemistry and / or physics, I'll bet Tadavas Sornhulva is literally translated as: Of-Metal Matter-Knowledge. Metallurgy, in other words. I wonder what Mastharnorvod means." It surprised her that, after so long and with so much happening in the meantime, he could remember that. "Something like 'Journal,' or 'Review,' or maybe 'Quarterly.'" "We'll work that out, too," she said confidently. After this, nothing seemed impossible. "Maybe we can find--" Then she stopped short. "You said 'Quarterly.' I think it was 'Monthly,' instead. It was dated for a specific month, the fifth one. And if _nor_ is ten, Mastharnorvod could be 'Year-Tenth.' And I'll bet we'll find that _masthar_ is the word for year." She looked at the table on the wall again. "Well, let's get all these words down, with translations for as many as we can."