Part-5
She was through the floor, a week later, and was having in the reading room on the when Hubert Penrose came over and sat her, her what she was doing. She told him.
"I wonder if you me a of men, for an hour or so," she added. "I'm stopped by a of doors at the hall. Lecture room and library, if the of that floor's anything like the ones it."
"Yes. I'm a door-buster, myself." He looked around the room. "There's Jeff Miles; he isn't doing much of anything. And we'll put Sid Chamberlain to work, for a change, too. The four of us ought to your doors open." He called to Chamberlain, who was his over to the dish washer. "Oh, Sid; you doing anything for the next hour or so?"
"I was going up to the fourth floor, to see what Tony's doing."
"Forget it. Tony's his season limit of Martians. I'm going to help Martha in a of doors; we'll a whole full of Martians."
Chamberlain shrugged. "Why not. A door can have anything of it, and I know what Tony's doing—just stuff."
Jeff Miles, the Space Force captain, came over, by one of the lab-crew from the ship who had come on the the day before.
"This ought to be up your alley, Mort," he was saying to his companion. "Chemistry and department. Want to come along?"
The man, Mort Tranter, was willing. Seeing the was what he'd come from the ship for. She her coffee and cigarette, and they out into the together, and the to the floor.
The lecture door was the nearest; they it first. With proper and help, it was no problem and in ten minutes they had it open wide to through with the floodlights. The room was empty, and, like most of the rooms closed doors, free from dust. The students, it appeared, had sat with their to the door, a low platform, but their seats and the lecturer's table and had been removed. The two inscriptions: on the[Pg 41] right, a pattern of circles which she as a of structure, and on the left a table of numbers and words, in two columns. Tranter was pointing at the on the right.
"They got as as the Bohr atom, anyhow," he said. "Well, not quite. They about shells, but they have the pictured as a solid mass. No of proton-and-neutron structure. I'll bet, when you come to their scientific books, you'll that they that the was the and particle. That why you people any that the Martians used energy."
"That's a atom," Captain Miles mentioned.
"It is?" Sid Chamberlain asked, excitedly. "Then they did know about energy. Just we haven't any pictures of A-bomb doesn't mean—"
She to look at the other wall. Sid's were away from him again; meant power to him, and the two were interchangeable. As she the of[Pg 42] the numbers and words, she Tranter saying:
"Nuts, Sid. We about a long time out what be done with it. Uranium was on Terra in 1789, by Klaproth."
There was something familiar about the table on the left wall. She to what she had been in about physics, and what she had up by accident afterward. The second was a of the first: there were forty-six in each, each item numbered consecutively—
"Probably used it's the largest of the natural atoms," Penrose was saying. "The that there's nothing it there that they hadn't any of the transuranics. A student go to that thing and point out the of any of the ninety-two elements."
Ninety-two! That was it; there were ninety-two in the table on the left wall! Hydrogen was Number One, she knew; One, Sarfaldsorn. Helium was Two; that was Tirfaldsorn. She couldn't which came next, but in Martian it was Sarfalddavas. Sorn must matter, or substance, then. And davas; she was trying to think of what it be. She to the others, of Hubert Penrose's arm with one hand and her with the other.
"Look at this thing, over here," she was excitedly. "Tell me what you think it is. Could it be a table of the elements?"
They all to look. Mort Tranter at it for a moment.
"Could be. If I only what those meant—"
That was right; he'd his time the ship.
"If you read the numbers, would that help?" she asked, to set the Arabic and their Martian equivalents. "It's system, the same as we use."
"Sure. If that's a table of elements, all I'd need would be the numbers. Thanks," he added as she off the and gave it to him.
Penrose the numbers, and was ahead of him. "Ninety-two items, numbered consecutively. The number would be the number. Then a single word, the name of the element. Then the weight—"
She reading off the names of the elements. "I know and helium; what's tirfalddavas, the third one?"[1]
"Lithium," Tranter said. "The aren't out past the point. Hydrogen's one plus, if that double-hook is a plus sign; Helium's four-plus, that's right. And lithium's as seven, that isn't right. It's six-point nine-four-oh. Or is that thing a Martian sign?"
"Of course! Look! A plus is a hook, to together;[Pg 43] a is a knife, to cut something off from something—see, the little is the and the long pointed is the blade. Stylized, of course, but that's what it is. And the fourth element, kiradavas; what's that?"
"Beryllium. Atomic weight as nine-and-a-hook; actually it's nine-point-oh-two."
Sid Chamberlain had been he couldn't a about the Martians having energy. It took him a minutes to the development, but it 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 the two after the weight, though. They look like months of the Martian calendar. What ought they to be, Mort?"
Tranter hesitated. "Well, the next after the weight ought to be the period and group numbers. But those are words."
"What would the numbers be for the one, hydrogen?"
"Period One, Group One. One shell, one in the shell," Tranter told her. "Helium's period one, too, but it has the outer—only—electron full, so it's in the group of elements."
"Trav, Trav. Trav's the month of the year. And helium's Trav, Yenth; Yenth is the month."
"The be called Group Eight, yes. And the third element, lithium, is Period Two, Group One. That check?"
"It does. Sanv, Trav; Sanv's the second month. What's the in Period Three?"
"Sodium. Number Eleven."
That's right; it's Krav, Trav. Why, the names of the months are numbers, one to ten, out.
"Doma's the month. That was your Martian word, Martha," Penrose told her. "The word for five. And if is the word for metal, and is and / or physics, I'll Tadavas Sornhulva is as: Of-Metal Matter-Knowledge. Metallurgy, in other words. I wonder what Mastharnorvod means." It her that, after so long and with so much in the meantime, he that. "Something like 'Journal,' or 'Review,' or maybe 'Quarterly.'"
"We'll work that out, too," she said confidently. After this, nothing impossible. "Maybe we can find—" Then she stopped short. "You said 'Quarterly.' I think it was 'Monthly,' instead. It was for a month, the one. And if is ten, Mastharnorvod be 'Year-Tenth.' And I'll we'll that is the word for year." She looked at the table on the again. "Well, let's all[Pg 44] these down, with for as many as we can."
"Let's take a for a minute," Penrose suggested, out his cigarettes. "And then, let's do this in comfort. Jeff, you and Sid go across the and see what you in the other room in the way of a or something like that, and a chairs. There'll be a of work to do on this."
Sid Chamberlain had been as though he were with ants, trying to himself. Now he let go with an jabber.
"This is it! The it, not just it-of-the-week, like the or those or this building, or the animals and the Martians! Wait till Selim and Tony see this! Wait till Tony sees it; I want to see his face! And when I this on telecast, all Terra's going to go nuts about it!" He to Captain Miles. "Jeff, you take a look at that other door, while I somebody to send to tell Selim and Tony. And Gloria; wait till she sees this—"
"Take it easy, Sid," Martha cautioned. "You'd let me have a look at your script, you go too on the telecast. This is just a beginning; it'll take years and years we're able to read any of those books downstairs."
"It'll go than you think, Martha," Hubert Penrose told her. "We'll all work on it, and we'll material to Terra, and people there will work on it. We'll send them we can ... we work out, and copies of books, and copies of your word-lists—"
And there would be other tables—astronomical tables, tables in and mechanics, for instance—in which and numbers were equivalent. The library stacks, below, would be full of them. Transliterate them into Roman and Arabic numerals, and somewhere, somebody would spot each significance, as Hubert Penrose and Mort Tranter and she had done with the table of elements. And out all the in the Library; new would take on meaning from in which the names of appeared. She'd have to start studying and physics, herself—
Sachiko Koremitsu in through the door, then inside.
"Is there anything I can do—?" she began. "What's happened? Something important?"
"Important?" Sid Chamberlain exploded. "Look at that, Sachi! We're reading it! Martha's out how to read Martian!" He Captain Miles by the arm. "Come on, Jeff; let's go. I want to call the others—" He was still as he from the room.
Sachi looked at the inscription. "Is it true?" she asked, and then, Martha more than be[Pg 45]gin to explain, her arms around her. "Oh, it is! You are reading it! I'm so happy!"
She had to start again when Selim Ohlmhorst entered. This time, she was able to finish.
"But, Martha, can you be sure? You know, by now, that learning to read this language is as to me as it is to you, but how can you be so sure that those like and and and oxygen? How do you know that their table of was anything like ours?"
Tranter and Penrose and Sachiko all looked at him in amazement.
"That isn't just the Martian table of elements; that's the table of elements. It's the only one there is." Mort Tranter almost exploded. "Look, has one and one electron. If it had more of either, it wouldn't be hydrogen, it'd be something else. And the same with all the of the elements. And on Mars is the same as on Terra, or on Alpha Centauri, or in the next galaxy—"
"You just set up those numbers, in that order, and any first-year student tell you what they represented." Penrose said. "Could if he to make a grade, that is."
The old man his slowly, smiling. "I'm I wouldn't make a grade. I didn't know, or at least didn't realize, that. One of the I'm going to place an order for, to be on the Schiaparelli, will be a set of in and physics, of the for a child of ten or twelve. It that a Martiologist has to learn a of the Hittites and the Assyrians about."
Tony Lattimer, in, the last part of the explanation. He looked at the and, having out just what had happened, and Martha by the hand.
"You did it, Martha! You your bilingual! I that it would be possible; let me you!"
He that to all the and of the past. If he did, he have it that way. His would as little to her as his derision—except that his friends had to watch their and his knife. But he was going home on the Cyrano, to be a big shot. Or had this his mind for him again?
"This is something we can the world, to any of time and money on Martian work. When I to Terra, I'll see that you're full for this achievement—"
On Terra, her and his knife would be out of her watchfulness.
"We won't need to wait that long," Hubert Penrose told him dryly. "I'm sending off an official report, tomorrow; you can be sure Dr. Dane will be full credit, not only for this but for her pre[Pg 46]vious work, which it possible to this discovery."
"And you might add, work done in of the and of her colleagues," Selim Ohlmhorst said. "To which I am to have to my own share."
"You said we had to a bilingual," she said. "You were right, too."
"This is than a bilingual, Martha," Hubert Penrose said. "Physical science facts; necessarily it is a language. Heretofore have only with pre-scientific cultures."
