"You're suspicious of language because our imperialism went hand in hand with our language," she said. Speidel looked at Langsmith. "You talk to her." "If there actually were communication in the sounds these Galactics make, you know we'd have found it by now," said Langsmith. "You know it!" She spoke in sudden anger: "I don't know it! In fact, I feel that we're on the verge of solving their language with this new approach we've been working on." "Oh, come now!" said Speidel. "Do you mean that after our finest cryptographers have worked over this thing for seven months, you disagree with them entirely?" "No, no, let her say her piece," said Langsmith. "We've tapped a new source of information in attacking this problem," she said. "Primitive dances." "Dances?" Speidel looked shocked. "Yes. I think the Galactics' gestures may be their adjectives and adverbs--the full emotional content of their language." "Emotion!" snapped Speidel. "Emotion isn't language!" She repressed a surge of anger, said: "We're dealing with something completely outside our previous experience. We have to discard old ideas. We know that the habits of a native tongue set up a person's speaking responses. In fact, you can define language as the system of habits you reveal when you speak." * * * * * Speidel tapped his fingers on the table, stared at the door behind Francine. She ignored his nervous distraction, said: "The Galactics use almost the full range of implosive and glottal stops with a wide selection of vowel sounds: fricatives, plosives, voiced and unvoiced. And we note an apparent lack of the usual interfering habits you find in normal speech." "This isn't normal speech!" blurted Speidel. "Those are nonsense sounds!" He shook his head. "Emotions!" "All right," she said. "Emotions! We're pretty certain that language begins with emotions--pure emotional actions. The baby pushes away the plate of unwanted food." "You're wasting our time!" barked Speidel. "I didn't ask to come down here," she said. "Please." Langsmith put a hand on Speidel's arm. "Let Dr. Millar have her say." "Emotion," muttered Speidel. "Every spoken language of earth has migrated away from emotion," said Francine. "Can you write an emotion on paper?" demanded Speidel. "That does it," she said. "That really tears it! You're blind! You say language has to be written down. That's part of the magic! You're mind is tied in little knots by academic tradition! Language, General, is primarily oral! People like you, though, want to make it into ritual noise!" "I didn't come down here for an egg-head argument!" snapped Speidel. "Let me handle this, please," said Langsmith. He made a mollifying gesture toward Francine. "Please continue." She took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I snapped," she said. She smiled. "I think we let emotion get the best of us." Speidel frowned.