Dr. Langsmith crossed to the chair Ohashi had occupied, sat down. He was a grey-haired runt of a man with a heavily seamed face, small features--a gnome figure with hard eyes. He had the reputation of an organizer and politician with more drive than genius. He pulled a stubby pipe from his pocket, lighted it. "I probably should have cleared this through channels," she said. "But I had visions of it getting bogged down in red tape, especially with Hiko ... I mean with another team represented in this project." "Quite all right," said Langsmith. "We knew what you were up to within a couple of hours. Now, we want to know what you've discovered. Dr. Ohashi looked pretty excited when he left here a bit ago." Her eyes brightened. "I think we're onto something," she said. "We've compared the Galactics' movements to known symbolism from primitive dances." Dr. Langsmith chuckled. "That's very interesting, my dear, but surely you...." "No, really!" she said. "We've found one hundred and six points of comparison, almost exact duplication of movements!" "Dances? Are you trying to tell me that...." "I know it sounds strange," she said, "but we...." "Even if you _have_ found exact points of comparison, that means nothing," said Langsmith. "These are _aliens_ ... from another world. You've no right to assume that their language development would follow the same pattern as ours has." "But they're humanoid!" she said. "Don't you believe that language started as the unconscious shaping of the _speech_ organs to imitate _bodily_ gestures?" "It's highly likely," said Langsmith. "We can make quite a few pretty safe assumptions about them," she said. "For one thing, they apparently have a rather high standard of civilization to be able to construct--" "Let's not labor the obvious," interrupted Langsmith, a little impatiently. Francine studied the team chief a moment, said: "Did you ever hear how Marshal Foch planned his military campaigns?" Langsmith puffed on his pipe, took it out of his mouth. "Uh ... are you suggesting that a military...." "He wrote out the elements of his problem on a sheet of paper," said Francine. "At the top of the paper went the lowest common denominator. There, he wrote: '_Problem--To beat the Germans._' Quite simple. Quite obvious. But oddly enough _beating the enemy_ has frequently been overlooked by commanders who got too involved in complicated maneuvers." "Are you suggesting that the Galactics are enemies?" She shook her head indignantly. "I am _not_! I'm suggesting that language is primarily an instinctive social reflex. The least common denominator of a social problem is a human being. One single human being. And here we are all involved with getting this thing into mathematical equations and neat word frequency primarily oral!" "But you've been researching a visual...."