“Yes, the volcanic anomaly,” Babo said. “Which in turn must derive from some magmatic feature, a plume arising deep within the belly of this world.”
“You talk of the Bullseye?” Nemoto was watching them, straining to hear, turning her little head this way and that in order to position her small immobile ears.
Babo watched Nemoto uneasily. “Do you think she can follow us?”
“I have taught her a few words,” said Manekato. “But our speech is too rapid for her to grasp; like all the creatures here on this oxygen-starved world, she is sluggish and slow-witted. I have had more success in decoding her own language. It is a little like the nonsense argots you used to make up for my amusement as a child, Babo.”
Babo was still watching Nemoto. “She imitates your behaviour well. Look how she gazes at the volcano! It’s almost as if she can understand what she is seeing.”
Manekato grunted. “Do not underestimate her, brother. I believe she is intelligent, to a degree. Consider the clothes she wears, her speech with its limited grammar, the tools she deploys — even her writing of symbols into her blocks of bound paper. Why, she claims to have come here, not through the blue portals, but in a spacecraft designed by others of her kind. And that she came to this Moon from curiosity. I found this as hard to believe as you, but she drew sketches which convinced me she is telling the truth.”
“But even the making of clothes may be no more than the outcome of instinct, Mane,” Babo said gently. “There is a kind of aquatic spider that makes diving bells from its webbing, and nobody would argue that it is intelligent. Perhaps some day we will discover a species, utterly without mind, which makes starships. Why not? And nor is symbol-making sufficient to demonstrate intelligence; there are social ants which—”
Manekato raised a hand to quiet him. “I am aware of the dangers of anthropomorphism. You think I have found a pet, here in this dismal place — that I am seeking intelligence where all I see is a reflection of my own self.”
Babo rubbed her back affectionately. “Well, isn’t that true?”
“Perhaps. But I strive to discount it. And meanwhile I have come to the belief that Nemoto and her kind may be — not merely intelligent — but self-aware.”
Babo laughed. “Come now, Mane. Let us show her a mirror, and together we will watch her seek the hominid behind the glass.”
“I already tried that test,” Manekato said. “She was very insulted.”
“If she is too proud to be tested, why does she follow you around?”
“For protection,” Manekato said promptly. “You saw how Without-Name treated her when she first found her. Nemoto shows great fear of her.”
Babo grunted. He crouched down before the hominid, Nemoto; his huge body was like a wall before her slim frame.
Nemoto returned his gaze calmly.
“…Intelligent, Mane? But the size of the cranium, the limited expanse of the frontal lobes — the dullness of those eyes. I do not get a sense of a person looking back out at me.”
Manekato snapped, “And you can assess a creature’s intelligence merely by looking at it?” She said, “Nemoto.”
The hominid looked up at her.
“You remember what I told you of the Mapping.” Manekato strove to slow down her speech, and to pronounce each word of Nemoto’s limited language clearly and distinctly.
Nemoto was frowning, concentrating hard. “I remember. You defined a mathematical function to map the components of your body to material of the Moon.” Her words, like her actions, were slow, drawn-out. “The domain of this function was yourselves and your equipment, the range a subset of the Moon. When you had defined the Mapping…”
“Yes?”
Nemoto struggled, but failed-to find the words. “/ have much to learn.’1
Babo grunted. “It is impressive that she knows there are limits to her knowledge. Perhaps that indicates some degree of self-awareness after all.”
Manekato said, “Then I am winning the argument.”
Babo grumbled good-naturedly. “Just remember we are here to study the Moon, and those who sent it spinning between the universes — not to converse with these brutish hominids, who were certainly not responsible.”
Manekato studied Nemoto. The little creature was watching her with empty, serious eyes. “Come,” said Manekato, and she held out her hand.
Nemoto took it with some reluctance.
Babo turned back to the refinement of his Mapping.
Manekato led Nemoto across the Mapped-in floor of the compound. They passed between structures that had been conjured out of Adjusted Space to shelter the people. Rounded yellow forms, to Mane’s taste over-ornate, they made the compound look like a plate set before a giant, loaded with exotic shapes — and with insect-like humans, Workers and hominids scuttling across it.
“You must not let my brother upset you,” Manekato said evenly, striving to express herself correctly in the narrow confines of Nemoto’s limited tongue.
“He has no imagination,” said Nemoto.
Manekato barked laughter, and Nemoto flinched. “I’ll tell him you said that!… But he means you no harm.”
“Unlike Without-Name, who does mean harm, and who has far too much imagination.”
“That is insightful, and neatly phrased.” She snapped her fingers and a Worker came scuttling. “Well done, Nemoto. You deserve a banana.”
Nemoto regarded the yellow fruit proffered by the Worker with loathing.
Manekato shrugged. She popped the banana into her mouth and swallowed it whole, skin and all.
Nemoto said cautiously, “I think your world has no Moon — none but this unwanted arrival.”
Manekato, interested, said, “And what of it?”
“Our scientists have speculated how the destiny of my world might have differed if it had been born without a Moon.”
“Really?” Manekato wondered briefly if “scientists” was correctly translated.
Nemoto took a deep breath. “Our Moon was born in a giant impact, in the final stage of the violent formation of the Solar System. The effects on Earth were profound…”
Manekato was fascinated by all this — not so much by the content, which seemed trivially obvious, but by the fact that Nemoto was able to spin together such a coherent statement at all — even if it was delivered in a maddeningly slow drawl. But Nemoto seemed desperate to retain Manekato’s attention, to win her understanding — and perhaps her approval.
“And what difference would all this make to the evolution of life?”
Nemoto said, “You come from a world that spins fast. There must be winds there persistent, strong. Perhaps you were once bipeds, but now you walk on all fours; probably I could not stand upright on your world. Your trees must hug the ground. And so on. Your air, derived from a primordial atmosphere never stripped off by impact, is thicker than mine, richer in carbon dioxide, probably richer in oxygen. You think fast, move fast, fuelled by the oxygen-rich air.” She hesitated. “And perhaps you die fast. Mane, I can expect to live for seventy years — years measured on your Earth, or mine. And you?”
“Twenty-five,” Manekato breathed. “Or less.” She was stunned by Nemoto’s sudden acuity — but then the homimd had been observing her for days now, learning about Manekato as Manekato had learned about her; she had simply saved up her conclusions — as a good scientist should.
“The evolution of life must have been quite different,” Nemoto said now. “With lower tides your oceans must be less enriched of silt washed down from the continents. And there must be less global ocean movement. I would expect a significantly different biota.
“As for humans, I believe that our evolutionary paths diverged at the stage we call the ‘Australopithecine’, Manekato. But the environment was different on our worlds, evoking a different adaptation. I would hazard that hunting is not a viable strategy for homimds on your world. Probably your short days were simply not long enough. You call yourself ‘Farmers’. Perhaps your world encouraged the early development of agriculture.”