ound, and by making different kinds of disturbances, we
worked out a crude sort of vocabulary."

"You did--" the Chief exclaimed.

"Nothing fancy, you understand," Kenzie belittled his achievement.
"But enough so when we broadcast a sugar wave, they came running to
the surface to see where it was. When we broadcast a water wave, they
rushed to the ant nursery and started carrying eggs to high ground."

"Glory be--" the Chief breathed. In his eyes there was the vision of
world renowned scientists patting him on the back. Maybe even more
important, Old Rock Jaw was actually smiling, and telling him he
could have unlimited funds in his budget.

"Sure," Kenzie said bitterly. "Sure that was all very fine. Big shots,
we were going to be, Pringle and me. First time in history man had
talked with an insect. Maybe even get our pictures in the paper, same
as if we'd murdered somebody. Fame!"

"Yeah," Pringle chimed in. "First step in learning how to communicate
with an alien mind. Nuts!"

"I don't get it," the Chief stammered. "What's wrong with that?"

"Well, we went on perfecting the vocabulary," Kenzie said. "You know.
Fining it down. Had the little beggars practically standing on their
heads at times with our wave." He grinned at the memory and seemed to
shake off some of his lethargy.

"You shoulda been here the night Pringle had them marching in
formation." His face fell again.

"We kept on improving the gadget," he said with hangdog attitude. "We
still hadn't made direct communication, you understand. Nothing like
'How do you do, Mrs. Ant? This is Kenzie MacKenzie, human, talking.'"
Then he sneered at his memory.

"With our microwave we could make them do things. But hell, you can
make them run out of the ground by pouring water down their hole.
That's not communication! We couldn't seem to contact them
direct--make them know we were communicating."

"But you still--" the Chief said. He had visions of every home using a
gadget to broadcast "keep away" signals to ant pests.

"Our gadget was still crude at that point," Kenzie interrupted. "We
fined it down, more and more. That's when we began to pick up the star
static."

"Star static?" the Chief faltered.

"He wouldn't know about that," Pringle said, and I could detect
contempt in his voice, even if the Chief didn't.

"Sure he would," Kenzie corrected. "Everybody knows about the fifty or
so stars that send out continuous radio signals, and how we've been