at that would hurt them or that they could damage. They gave each of
them a pair of blankets and a pneumatic mattress, which delighted
them, although the cots puzzled them at first.

"What do you think about feeding them, Bennet?" Meillard asked,
when the two Svants had gone to bed and they were back in the
headquarters hut. "You said the food on this planet is safe
for Terrans."

"So I did, and it is, but the rule's not reversible. Things we eat
might kill them," Fayon said. "Meats will be especially dangerous.
And no caffein, and no alcohol."

"Alcohol won't hurt them," Schallenmacher said. "I saw big jars full
of fermenting fruit-mash back of some of those houses; in about a
year, it ought to be fairly good wine. C_{2}H_{5}OH is the same on
any planet."

"Well, we'll get native foodstuffs tomorrow," Meillard said.
"We'll have to do that by signs, too," he regretted.

"Get Mom to help you; she's pretty sharp," Lillian advised.
"But I think Sonny's the village half-wit."

Anna de Jong agreed. "Even if we don't understand Svant psychology,
that's evident; he's definitely subnormal. The way he clings to his
mother for guidance is absolutely pathetic. He's a mature adult,
but mentally he's still a little child."

"That may explain it!" Dorver cried. "A mental defective, in a
community of telepaths, constantly invading the minds of others
with irrational and disgusting thoughts; no wonder he is rejected
and persecuted. And in a community on this culture level, the mother
of an abnormal child is often regarded with superstitious
detestation--"

[Illustration]

"Yes, of course!" Anna de Jong instantly agreed, and began to go
into the villagers' hostility to both mother and son; both of them
were now taking the telepathy hypothesis for granted.

Well, maybe so. He turned to Lillian.

"What did you find out?"

"Well, there is a common characteristic in all four sounds. A
little patch on the screen at seventeen-twenty cycles. The odd
thing is that when I try to repeat the sound, it isn't there."

Odd indeed. If a Svant said something, he made sound waves; if she
imitated the sound, she ought to imitate the wave pattern. He said
so, and she agreed.

"But come back here and look at this," she invited.

She had been using a visibilizing analyzer; in it, a sound was broken
by a set of filters into frequency-groups, translated into light
from dull red to violet paling into pure white. It photographed the
light-