Jason Holder pointed out to him that, although their duties were similar to those of earth-born deities, there was a subtle difference. The gods at home had given their bounty as a gift, and might withdraw it if they were miffed, or out of town, or jealous of another deity. The Intigo’s gods seemed to have a responsibility to make provision. It was not quixotic, but rather an obligation. It almost seemed as if the Goompahs were in charge.
Also significant, Holder continued, there was no god of war. And none of pestilence. “All of the deities represent positive forces,” Jason said. But he admitted he didn’t know what to make of that fact, except that the Goompahs seemed remarkably well adjusted.
The artwork from the library texts revealed much about how the Goompahs saw their gods. They did indeed embody majesty and power; but there was also a strong suggestion of compassion. One of the deities, Lykonda, daughter of the divine trio, had wings. And she always carried a torch. So they knew who welcomed mortals at the entrance to the temple. There was as yet no indication that the natives believed in an afterlife, but Jason predicted that, if they did, Lykonda would be on hand to welcome them to their reward.
The cities formed a league whose political outline was vague. But they had a common currency. And neither Judy’s people nor Hutch’s analysts back home found any mention of defense needs. Nor did the available Goompah history, sketchy though it may have been, indicate any kind of conflict that humans would have described as war. Ever.
Well, some intercity disagreements had sent mobs from one town to the outskirts of another, where they threw rocks or, in one celebrated incident, animal bladders filled with dyed water. There had been occasional fatalities, but nowhere was there a trace of the kind of mass organized violence that so marred human history.
There had even been a handful of armed encounters. But they’d been rare, and the numbers involved had been small. Collingdale could by no means claim to have a complete history of the Intigo. Still, this seemed to be a remarkably peaceful race. And a reading of their philosophers revealed a subtle and extraordinary code of ethics that compared favorably with the admonitions of the New Testament.
The Goompah world appeared to be limited to the isthmus and the areas immediately north and south. Their sailing vessels stayed in sight of land. There was no indication whether they’d developed the compass. They had apparently not penetrated more than a few thousand kilometers in any direction from home. They had not established colonies. They showed no expansionist tendencies whatever.
The Goompahs possessed some scientific and engineering ability. Judy’s team had found a book devoted to climatology. Most of its assertions were wrong, but it revealed an underlying assumption that climatic fluctuations had natural causes, and if one could assemble the correct equations and make valid observations, weather prediction would become possible.
Some among them suspected they lived on a sphere. No one knew how they’d figured that out, but a number of references to the Intigo described it as a globe. Occasionally the adjective world-circling was attached to ocean.
The team had recovered and partially translated thirty-six books from the Brackel Library. Of the thirty-six, thirteen could be described as poetry or drama. There was nothing one might call a novel, or even fiction. The rest were history, political science—their governments were republics of one form or another—and philosophy, which had been separated from the natural sciences, itself no small achievement.
THE UPPER STRATA made an effort to join in the spirit of things. They prepared lines and committed them to memory, so the common room filled up with Goompah chatter.
Challa this and Challa that.
Frank Bergen wished everyone mokar kappa. Good luck. Literally, happy stars. They could find no Goompah word for luck or fortune, so they’d improvised. Dangerous, but unavoidable.
When Wally offered a chocolate brownie to Ava, she had the opportunity to deliver her line: “Ocho baranara Si-kee.” I am in your debt.
Ava smiled, and Wally, fumbling pronunciation, replied that her blouse looked delicious.
Jerry Madden told Judy that he hoped she found success in all her endeavors, delivering the line from memory. And getting it right.
She replied that things were going quite well, thank you very much, and that his diction was excellent, rendering the last word in both Goompah and English.
Jerry beamed.
Elsewhere, Peggy got a suggestion from Harry Chin: “When stuck,” Harry told her, “you can fall back on karamoka tola kappa.”
Peggy tried it, beat it up a bit, and finally got it right.
“Excellent, Peg,” he said. “We may draft you into the unit.”
“Of course. And what does it mean?”
“ ‘May the stars always shine for you.’ ”
DINNER WAS SERVED with a Goompah menu, although the food was strictly terrestrial. While they ate, Alexandra, trying to use the language, told Collingdale something. But she butchered it, tried again, and threw up her hands. “You have a message from the DO,” she said, finally.
It was simply a status report. Hutchins had rounded up the assistance of a few more experts in a half dozen fields, and shown them the recordings and the texts from Lookout, and she was forwarding their comments. Her own covering remarks were short and to the point. You might especially want to pay attention to Childs’s observations on the arrangement of the statuary in the temple. Billings has interesting things to say about the recurrence of the number eleven, although there’s probably nothing to it. Pierce thinks he’s isolated a new referent for the dative case. Hope all’s well.
What struck him was that she said it all in Goompah. And got most of it right. Not bad for a bureaucrat. “Alexandra,” he told the captain, “the woman has something going for her.”
Much the same thing happened when the daily transmission came in from the Jenkins.
“David, we got another show for you last evening.” Digger did it in Goompah. Collingdale hadn’t known anybody on the Jenkins was making the effort.
Digger went on to explain they’d recorded a drama for which the al-Jahani already had the script. He smiled out of the screen, signaling that he understood quite well the value of that. An unparalleled chance to tie together the written and spoken versions of the language.
Magnificent, Digger, thought Collingdale.
“We’ve also relocated some of the pickups to Saniusar. They’re all designated, so you won’t have any problem sorting them out. Raw data is included with this package.
“One more thing. I’m trying to translate Antigone into Goompah. But we don’t seem to have the vocabulary. I don’t know how to say glorious, forbidden, fate, brooding, and a bunch more. I’ve included the words. If any of your people have time, I’d appreciate the help.”
Antigone?
Alexandra looked over at him, her forehead creased. “Why?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ve no idea, but it sounds like a decent exercise.”
COLLINGDALE WAS IN the shower, preparing to call it a day, when Alexandra’s voice broke in with a general announcement: “Attention, please. This is the captain. We are going to jump back into sublight for a few hours. There is no problem, and no reason to be concerned. But we’ll be performing the maneuver in two minutes. Please get to a restraint.”
Two minutes? What the hell was going on? She sounded calm and reassuring, but that was what most alarmed Collingdale. This was an unscheduled stop, so obviously something was wrong.
“Everyone please find a harness and settle in.”
It struck him that it was probably almost the first back-to-back English sentences he’d heard all day.
“It’s nothing serious,” she said when he called.