"I don't doubt he does, Your Grace. And I didn't say he didn't; I only said we can't prove it... yet. And while I hope your analysis is correct, I also have to point out that you do have a special link to Nimitz. One which no one else, to the best of our knowledge, has ever shared. It's possible that at least a part of what you believe you're communicating to him with your words is actually reaching him over that link. It's even possible that a part of what all 'cats `hear' from all humans is enhanced by an ability on their part to perceive the thoughts behind our words. For purposes of applied cognitive effort, humans tend to think in language, to organize the syntax of our thought processes in the fashion in which we're accustomed to receiving information, so perhaps what's actually happening is that we're putting words together to communicate with them, but what they're actually `hearing' is the mental organization behind the words."
"I suppose that's possible," Honor acknowledged with a frown. It was odd, but the possibility Arif was suggesting had never occurred to her, and it should have. "I don't think it's what's happening, but I can't dismiss the possibility out of hand."
"As I say, I hope it isn't what's happening," Arif said, "because it's clear Nimitz's injuries have completely silenced his ability to send thoughts to Samantha. Or, put another way, she can't `hear' anything from him, which means she wouldn't be able to `hear' the thoughts behind the signs we might teach him to make.
"My personal belief is that the 'cats have grasped the concept of human language, at least at its most basic level. But that's only my belief. It hasn't been demonstrated yet, and until we do demonstrate it, I don't want anyone assuming we're home free."
"I can appreciate that," Honor said, and Miranda nodded.
"Actually," Arif went on in a more thoughtful tone, "in many ways, I'll be deeply surprised if it turns out the 'cats haven't grasped the concept. I know I just finished arguing that a race of telepaths would have no need to develop a language interface like our own, but they do communicate, and they obviously know we do. More to the point, they can hear us communicate, even if we can't hear them, and they've been watching and listening to us for hundreds of T-years. The fact that they're empaths and we know they can detect and correctly interpret human emotions is another hopeful sign, in my opinion. They've been able to hear us speaking to one another, and to them, while they simultaneously tracked the emotions behind the words, which you could think of as sort of the ultimate in paralanguage. And the fact that two previous attempts failed might not mean a thing in relation to that long a period. It's been a tad over three hundred years since the last try was made, and if the concept of a spoken language was as alien to them as I believe it almost certainly was, it could very well have taken them considerably more than a century of contact with humans to make the sort of mental leap forward required to grasp the concept at all.
"But given the fact that Doctor Brewster's tests have demonstrated that the 'cats are at least as smart as most of their champions have claimed from the beginning, and given that learning to understand their humans would certainly be high on their list of things to do, I'd think there's an excellent chance they truly have learned to understand us when we speak to them since the last failure to teach them to sign. I don't think it would have been easy for them, mind you, but they've certainly had plenty of time to work on the problem!"
"That's true enough," Honor said wryly, and all three treecats bleeked laughter. Honor paused at the sound and turned to cock an eyebrow at Nimitz. "You know, Stinker, it just occurred to me that we've been sitting here and trying to reason our way through this when there was a much simpler solution. Come over here a minute."
Nimitz bleeked cheerfully and jumped from his perch to the back of Honor's chair with much of his old agility. His tail flirted airily as he flowed down over her shoulder to the chair arm and from there to her desk, then parked himself upright on his rearmost limbs, cocked his head at her, and twitched his whiskers.
"I believe we may be able to settle this right now, Doctor Arif," Honor said, with a smile whose crookedness was the product of wry humor and no longer imposed by dead nerves, then looked back at Nimitz.
"Do you understand us when we talk to you, Stinker?" she asked softly.
There was a moment of complete silence while all three humans stared at the silken-coated, six-limbed creature on the desk, and then Nimitz bleeked softly and his head moved in what could only have been a slow, deliberate nod.
Honor exhaled, slowly and deeply, then looked at Arif and raised both eyebrows. The linguist gazed back for several seconds, and then dropped her eyes to the 'cat.
"Nimitz?" she said, and the 'cat turned to face her. "Do you understand me when I speak to you?" she asked, and he nodded once more. "Do you listen to my words and understand them and not just the thoughts behind them?" Again he nodded. "And do you and Samantha understand that I'm going to be trying to teach you and Her Grace a way to let you talk to people, and each other, in a way that doesn't use words?"
He nodded yet again, and Arif sat back in her chair, her dark eyes glowing.
"It's still not conclusive, Your Grace. Until we've established a way for him to tell me more than simply yes or no, we won't be able to know we aren't losing an enormous amount of information in transmission — or, for that matter, that he truly is hearing and understanding us without a telepathic `overlay.' But I think you're right. I think he and Samantha — and Farragut," she added, smiling at Miranda "—really do understand spoken English. I don't know how well yet, but I think you and Nimitz have just demonstrated the basic ability. And if that's the case, my job just got enormously easier, because all I'll really have to do is design a nonverbal interface through which someone who already understands what I'm saying can `talk' back to me. And your mother is right. The old sign languages for the speech and hearing impaired are definitely the place to begin."
Honor's mental ears pricked at the emphasis Arif had placed on the last word, and she tipped back her own chair and gazed thoughtfully at the linguist.
" `Begin,' Doctor?" she repeated, and Arif grinned.
"Well, if I'm right about your having demonstrated that they understand human language, I'm already past the single greatest hurdle. But the next logical question for any linguist to ask herself is obvious, I think. If 'cats can grasp the concept of a spoken language, can they make the next jump and grasp the concept of a written one? We invented it as a way to record the symbols — the sounds — we use in language. Obviously, the 'cats have never needed a means to record sounds, but it doesn't necessarily follow that they haven't devised some means of recording whatever they use in the place of our symbols. No one has ever identified anything remotely like the means we use, but they obviously have a fully functional society with a deep continuity, which means they must have developed some substitute for writing to pass ideas on. My own theory is that it would have to be something like an oral history tradition, similar to those of preliterate human societies, although even the limited amount I've already learned about 'cat clan structures and group social behavior suggests that it's a bit more than that.
"But assuming that we're right about the 'cats' preexisting grasp of the concept of language, teaching them to sign shouldn't be all that difficult. Teaching them to read and write, however, require them not only to grasp the concept of words but also the concept that `the map is the territory.' They'd have to grasp the association between inanimate symbols and living ones, but if they can..."