No, Talker was not an ideal character from a human point of view; but Kirk still felt attracted to him. Could he go back and tell the alien that it was useless to ask him for further aid? The man shrank from the thought; and yet what else could he do? Nothing. Slowly the human being finished the walk to his former camp site, shouldered the heavy pack, and turned back toward the ship. He walked sturdily, but the morning sunlight filtered through the leaves onto a face that looked far older than Kirk’s twenty years would demand.
Talker was still waiting on the bank, both his great yellow eyes fixed upon the opening of the trail. He saw Kirk coming with his burden, and at once turned and flew to the air lock, disappearing within. Kirk saw him go, and called; the herald’s head and antennae reappeared at the portal. The man dropped his pack to the ground, and stood motionless and silent, looking at the mothman and trying to find words in which to express the thing he had to make clear. He couldn’t do it.
The thoughts were enough. Talker spread his wings and, concealing the frightful effort the act cost him, returned to the place where Kirk was standing. He still carried the writing materials, and, as the Earthling commenced to realize the extent to which he had been analyzed, he began writing.
“What is it that we have done to offend your customs?” asked the herald. “What possible interest can you have in those of my kind whom you have never seen, of whom you would never have heard except for me?”
Kirk tried to explain his attitude on the subject of piracy, but failed signally. To the alien, raiding and looting were the natural means of making a living; his ideas of right and wrong simply did not match those of human civilization, any more than could be expected. It was Talker who finally decided that further effort in that direction was useless.
“When I first discovered you,” he said, “it took some time for me to realize that the waves you radiated represented a pattern of intelligence. Your behavior eventually showed the truth, and with much effort I learned to interpret, to a certain extent, those thought waves. I fear that we are up against the same problem here. Just as it took me some time to comprehend that my thoughts were not the only possible kind, I am just beginning to understand that my behavior pattern is not the only possible one. With time, perhaps I may understand yours; I must, if to do so lies within the powers of intelligence. Therefore, I invite you to come with us, anyway, to the southern regions from which you say you have come. On the way, you will tell me more about your people, as I have told you of mine. Perhaps, with that background, I shall begin to appreciate your point of view and find a means of persuading you to help us. In any case, the knowledge will be of great interest for its own sake.
“Until I do have some understanding of your reasons for refusal, I shall not repeat our request; nor shall I inform the commander of what has occurred. The less he knows, the better for both of us, as well as himself. He could never appreciate what I am now trying to do, and he has no understanding of how a mind can seek pure knowledge without some immediate use for it — curiosity and imagination are unknown to him.
“Come, then; we will travel southward slowly, and converse as we fly. Some time at least will be saved; and we do not dare spend more than a few more days on this planet. We would not have enough of the crew left to man the engines — there are few enough of us now who remain able.”
Kirk accepted, though never thereafter could he account for his reasons for doing so.
Unconsciously, he wanted to give the creature a chance to justify itself; more and more the idea was winning ground that a being so generally reasonable and so utterly imperturbable in the face of telling disappointment could not be a criminal on any code. Such a belief, of course, is unreasonable and unjustifiable even when considered with respect to a single culture. Applied by a member of one civilization to a creature of another, such an emotional attitude is sheer lunacy.
Logic alone stands a chance, and even that is likely to be badly crippled for lack of data.
Earthman and alien entered the air lock, and closed both doors — for nearly the last time on Earth, the herald hoped. Talker relaxed for a moment in the corridor, fervently vowing never again to spread his wings on a world where he couldn’t fly without stimulants; then he crawled forward and up the ramp to the control room, Kirk following.
They found themselves alone in the control chamber, for it was still early morning. Talker sounded the signal intended to let Boss know he was wanted, and the oddly assorted pair waited in silence. Several repetitions of the call were necessary before Boss finally appeared from below.
His attitude was even more domineering than usual, partly because he had just been awakened by the signal, and partly because he never missed an opportunity to try to impress the native with his importance; he never fully appreciated the fact that the human being could neither “hear” his speech nor interpret his bodily attitude.
Talker told him to get the ship into the air, and cruise slowly toward the equator of the planet until ocean was reached. Boss promptly began asking questions about the state of progress in locating the object of their search; and the herald replied that at the moment no progress was being made because the individual who should be working was talking instead. That silenced the captain, and he moved to the control board to call the engineers to their stations. Talker took his place at the commander’s side, ready to transmit more detailed instructions if and when necessary. The signal board was a sufficiently versatile affair to transmit the relatively simple commands involved in raising the ship, however; as a matter of fact, the actual take-off, as would be expected, was handled from the control room, and orders were given merely to start the proper generators below.
Kirk laid his pack on the floor beside the captain and sat on it, thus bringing his head down to within about two feet of the other’s. The glass ports, larger than any others in the ship, permitted him to see in all directions forward, while a periscope, which he quickly noticed, gave a partial view backward, leaving the lower rear the vessel’s only blind spot. The periscope eyepiece was made to accommodate the huge optics of the ship’s owners, and transmitted a decidedly distorted image to Kirk’s eyes, as he found by experiment. The field of view could not be shifted, and its lower half was occupied by the hull. The man turned his attention to the great port which gave a clear view of what lay below and in front.
He settled himself more solidly as the ground slid smoothly away from him. There was no take-off run; the vessel rose straight for two thousand feet, turned the streamlined bow southward, and followed its nose. Boss relaxed at his post as soon as they were on course, and merely kept his eyes on a row of dials supposed to indicate the behavior of the generators. An engineer was watching a duplicate set below, and it made little difference whether or not Boss stuck to his job — though he would not have admitted that fact to Kirk had he been able to speak to him.
The human being and the herald watched and commented upon the terrain below, as it drifted sternward. Talker drew attention to the deserted appearance of the forest, and compared it to the similar vast, uninhabited regions of his own planet. This, as intended, drew from Kirk a description of the more densely populated countries, of the different peoples who inhabited them, and the various relationships existing between them. On this last point he was a fair lecturer, for he had spent a good deal of time on sociology. The herald kept him talking, asking questions whenever the man seemed to be running down, and in general doing everything which was likely to result in the production of any information that might be of use.