He needed all his remaining energy to think with. He knew these teardrops were sentient. They were curious, they communicated with each other, and they danced. They had minds, therefore. * * * * * George remembered hearing that Man had danced even before he learned to speak, in a primitive effort to express his feelings. He knew some birds dance, too--as a courtship procedure. Insects, even. But why did the teardrops dance? What was the significance of rhythmic motion between a pebble and a watch? A tin lid and a man's hand? What did the pebbles mean? The pebble was a native object, known to be lifeless, inanimate. The watch was a strange something that moved. The can-lid did not move. The hand--gloved, though they could not know that--was an object that moved. The dance was a question, therefore. Alive, or dead? The teardrops wanted to know. Is the watch that moves by itself alive? The strangely symmetrical lid of a can, is it alive? The oddshaped hand? These teardrops had good minds--could grasp abstractions. In a sense, George felt, the difference between animate and inanimate objects is an abstraction. In his dying state, the notion amused him. Smiling, he placed a pebble on the watch, another on the lid. He sat up, moved his weakened body so they could perhaps tell it was a unit. He picked up a teardrop in each hand, held them at his visor, rolled his eyes, and opened and shut his mouth. He spoke to them. He sang to them. He swayed with them to show he too could dance. They made no sign of reply. None that he could recognize, at any rate. Carefully he felt and looked at the entire surface of a teardrop, putting one down to devote both hands to the other. He thought perhaps the lack of organs and openings might simply mean they were clothed or armored in some way. But the thing was apparently naked. The surfaces he touched were probably skin. He didn't know. And they, would they know what a man was? Were they even certain he was alive? One of them was behind him, dancing before the tent. Seeing that, he was certain the teardrops hadn't yet distinguished the animate from the inanimate in the objects around them here. And George had little time to teach them. Already he was dull and listless. His vision was playing tricks on him. Like as not he'd be dead before they knew for certain he'd been alive. Dead in the grotesque space-suit. Preserved in an atmosphere of formaldehyde. His body would seem like a machine that had run down. There would be no discernable difference between himself and his watch. But if they knew he'd been alive? They might remember, then. They were intelligent, could communicate with one another. By rights they should have some kind of legends or traditions or history. If they did, if they knew they'd seen alien life, they'd keep the memory alive.