Rough Translation Part 1

Rough Translation.

by Jean M. Janis.

Don't be ashamed if you can't blikkel any more. It's because you couldn't help framis.h.i.+ng.

"Shurgub," said the tape recorder. "Just like I told you before, Dr.

Blair, it's krandoor, so don't expect to vrillipax, because they just won't stand for any. They'd sooner framish."

"Framish?" Jonathan heard his own voice played back by the recorder, tinny and slightly nasal. "What is that, Mr. Easton?"

"_You_ know. Like when you guttip. Carooms get awfully bevvergrit.

Why, I saw one actually--"

"Let's go back a little, shall we?" Jonathan suggested. "What does shurgub mean?"

There was a pause while the machine hummed and the recorder tape whirred. Jonathan remembered the look on Easton's face when he had asked him that. Easton had pulled away slightly, mouth open, eyes hurt.

"Why--why, I _told_ you!" he had shouted. "Weeks ago! What's the matter? Don't you blikkel English?"

Jonathan Blair reached out and snapped the switch on the machine.

Putting his head in his hands, he stared down at the top of his desk.

You learned Navajo in six months, he reminded himself fiercely.

You are a highly skilled linguist. What's the matter? Don't you blikkel English?

He groaned and started searching through his briefcase for the reports from Psych. Easton must be insane. He must! Ramirez says it's no language. Stoughton says it's no language. And _I_, Jonathan thought savagely, say it's no language.

But--

Margery tiptoed into the study with a tray.

"But Psych," he continued aloud to her, "Psych says it _must_ be a language because, they say, Easton is _not_ insane!"

"Oh, dear," sighed Margery, blinking her pale blue eyes. "That again?"

She set his coffee on the desk in front of him. "Poor Jonathan. Why doesn't the Inst.i.tute give up?"

"Because they can't." He reached for the cup and sat glaring at the steaming coffee.

"Well," said his wife, settling into the leather chair beside him, "_I_ certainly would. My goodness, it's been over a month now since he came back, and you haven't learned a thing from him!"

"Oh, we've learned some. And this morning, for the first time, Easton himself began to seem puzzled by a few of the things he was saying.

He's beginning to use terms we can understand. He's coming around. And if I could only find some clue--some sort of--"

Margery snorted. "It's just plain foolis.h.!.+ I knew the Inst.i.tute was asking for trouble when they sent the _Rhinestead_ off. How do they know Easton ever got to Mars, anyway? Maybe he did away with those other men, cruised around, and then came back to Earth with this made-up story just so he could seem to be a hero and--"

"That's nonsense!"

"Why?" she demanded stubbornly. "Why is it?"

"Because the _Rhinestead_ was tracked, for one thing, on both flights, to and from Mars. Moonbase has an indisputable record of it. And besides, the instruments on the s.h.i.+p itself show--" He found the report he had been searching for. "Oh, never mind."

"All right," she said defiantly. "Maybe he did get to Mars. Maybe he did away with the crew after he got there. He knew the s.h.i.+p was built so that one man could handle it in an emergency. Maybe he--"

"Look," said Jonathan patiently. "He didn't do anything of the sort.

Easton has been checked so thoroughly that it's impossible to a.s.sume anything except, (a) he is sane, (b) he reached Mars and made contact with the Martians, (c) this linguistic barrier is a result of that contact."

Margery shook her head, sucking in her breath. "When I think of all those fine young men," she murmured. "Heaven only knows what happened to them!"

"You," Jonathan accused, "have been reading that columnist--what's-his-name? The one that's been writing such claptrap ever since Easton brought the _Rhinestead_ back alone."

"Cuddlehorn," said his wife. "Roger Cuddlehorn, and it's not claptrap."

"The other members of the crew are all alive, all--"

"I suppose Easton told you that?" she interrupted.

"Yes, he did."

"Using double-talk, of course," said his wife triumphantly. At the look on Jonathan's face, she stood up in guilty haste. "All right, I'll go!" She blew him a kiss from the door. "Richie and I are having lunch at one. Okay? Or would you rather have a tray in here?"

"Tray," he said, turning back to his desk and his coffee. "No, on second thought, call me when lunch is ready. I'll need a break."

He was barely conscious of the closing of the door as Margery left the room. Naturally he didn't take her remarks seriously, but--

He opened the folder of pictures and studied them again, along with the interpretations by Psych, Stoughton, Ramirez and himself.

Easton had drawn the little stick figures on the first day of his return. The interpretations all checked--and they had been done independently, too. There it is, thought Jonathan. Easton lands the _Rhinestead_. He and the others meet the Martians. They are impressed by the Martians. The others stay on Mars. Easton returns to Earth, bearing a message.

Question: What is the message?

Teeth set, Jonathan put away the pictures and went back to the tape on the recorder. "Yes," said his own voice, in answer to Easton's outburst. "I do--er--blikkel English. But tell me, Mr. Easton, do you understand me?"

"Under-stand?" The man seemed to have difficulty forming the word.

"You mean--" Pause. "Dr. Blair, I murv you. Is that it?"

"Murv," repeated Jonathan. "All right, you murv me. Do you murv this?

I do not always murv what you say."

A laugh. "Of course not. How could you?" Suppressed groan. "Carooms,"