The Forever Man (39 page)

“I think,” said Jim, “that we've got a communications problem. When we say ‘talk,' we're referring to what we usually make as physical sounds in the air—”

“Of course!” said the speaker. Jim had privately named him ?1 and, seeing there were so many more of them, had, privately decided to think of all the others as simply ?plus. “Of course, you garble it up very much, but I think I understand you now. You make changes in your hole in order to converse. But why do that when you can talk?”

“I was starting out to say when you interrupted me—” began Jim.

“I'm sorry. I did interrupt you.'

“—Yes, he's very sorry.”

“—Very sorry, indeed.”

“—We're all sorry with him.”

“—We would have interrupted, too, because we didn't know you couldn't talk and listen at the same time.”

A roar of apologies and explanations, all in different voices flooded in, then was cut off abruptly as the single voice spoke again.

“From now on, I'll wait for you to tell me when you're through speaking.”

“That might get a little clumsy,” put in Mary. “Why don't you just wait until one of us pauses? We always pause when we're ready to listen.”

“Good. I'll do that. So will everybody else. Did you ask me a question last, or did I ask you one?”

“Don't you know?” asked Mary.

“Of course I know, but I'm being nice.”

“Jim was trying to explain that what you call talking we call thinking—”

“There you are,” said the voice sadly. “You were just about to tell me what you called something when you said…”

“Go on,” said Mary, after a moment of complete silence.

“I was not saying what you didn't say,” said the voice of ?1. “What I meant to say was that you said nothing, you said a blank.”

“Let me suggest something,” said Jim.

“By all means,” said ?1.

“As I said, we're having a communications problem.”

“You did say that,” put in a ?plus. “There's really no need to say it again.”

“Sorry,” said Jim. Now I'm doing it, he thought, a little crazily. “I've got a suggestion to make that might give us all a solution to this communication problem.”

“Good,” said ?1.

“It's this. I'll start to talk and explain as fully as I can about Mary and myself. When I'm done, I'll tell you so. I'll say, ‘I'm through.' Then one of you will answer me, telling me how much of what I said was heard by you and how much wasn't. That way we may be able to figure out where the communication breaks down, and why. With your permission, I'll now start talking. You'll all listen without saying a word until I say, ‘I'm through.' Then one of you will answer me, and Mary and I will do nothing but listen until that one of you says, ‘I'm through.' Then I'll speak again until I say, ‘I'm through.' You answer under the same rule, and so on. Agreed? I'm through.”

“Agreed. I'm through,” said ?l.

“Good for you, Jim,” said Mary.

“Thanks,” answered Jim. “Tell me that again, later, will you—when I've got time to appreciate it?”

He turned his attention back to their invisible/visible audience.

“All right, then,” he said. “I'll begin. We seem to be able to talk to each other to a limited extent, but wherever the concept behind our thought isn't known or understood by the listening party, nothing comes across. Instead, the listener hears what seems to be a blank, just as Question Mark One—as I've named the one of you who's done most of the speaking to us—said.”

“As a result, there are undoubtedly going to be a lot of blanks in what I now say to you. Hopefully, finding out where these blanks are will help us establish the areas in which one of us doesn't understand the other, and we can try to fill those blanks with meaning by trying to describe these unknowns.”

“Just to give you something to start working with, I'm already aware that you don't understand the difference between us and some of those you call our friends. The third living thing aboard this ship, which you call a hole for reasons I don't understand, is actually something different from Mary and myself. Mary and I call ourselves humans. We have bodies with two legs, two arms and a head. The individual we call Squonk, which is the third living thing here, has two legs, a head and six tentacles, but no arms.”

“Mary and I come from a planet orbiting a sun a long way from here, on the other side of the territory of the living things we call Laagi. Squonk is a less intelligent, servant species used by the Laagi. The Laagi are those you call our friends, but who can't see you and whom you told not to come any farther, with the result that they sat in their ships and died at the edge of your territory. Mary and I came here without our bodies to study the Laagi. The Laagi don't know that we can live outside of our bodies. Since you have no bodies most of what I have just been saying probably made no sense to you. So I will stop here, although there's a lot more I could say. I'm through.”

He stopped. There was a prolonged silence.

“I will begin,” said ?1, “since you mentioned me—why are you radiating surprise? I'm through.”

“I just thought the name I'd given you would be one of the things you couldn't hear. I'm through,” said Jim.

“I don't know what that blank is you said you just gave me, but you identified me as you began speaking, so I'm answering. Shall I continue? I'm through.”

“Yes. I'm through,” said Jim hastily.

“I'll continue, then. Speaking for all of us, I feel that our responsibility in this case is greater than yours, since we had already talked to your particular beloved friend who was here before you and found his speech also full of blanks. Although I must say, regretfully, that there seemed to be some problem about his thinking, as well. In fact, forgive me for saying…”

?1's mental voice had sunk to a confidential whisper.

“…but he sometimes saw things that weren't there.”

?1's voice went back to its normal tone and volume.

“However, we have had experience with a person such as you and clearly you have had no experience with persons such as us. Therefore we… and I most certainly… in any case, thank you. It is, as you apparently understand, very hard to guess what might be found in the blanks that occur in your talk when you speak to us. Let me try… therefore to recapitulate what you told us.

“You said that the holes of some of your friends were different from the holes of your other friends. Therefore there was some larger or general difference between you and them. We were left with the possibility that the friends who are holes different from you do not understand why you sometimes do not take your personal holes with you when you go to visit them—I refer strictly to your personal holes, not the somewhat larger hole you and your nonseeing, nonhearing, speechless friend here, whose hole is in some way different from yours, are currently wearing. The question arises why do any of you, similar friends and different friends, wear holes at all? I'm through.”

“Fine,” said Jim. “Already we're making some progress. When you talk about holes, I think you're referring to what we call ships, or bodies. Were there a couple of blanks in the last few words I said? I'm through.”

“There were,” said ?1. “Apparently you have a different conception of holes than we do. I'm through.”

“You tell me what you think holes are. I'm through.”

“A hole is hard to define. A hole is a hole. It is a place that—isn't. I'm through.”

“Isn't what? I'm through,” said Jim.

“Isn't the universe. A hole is any place where the universe ceases to be because the hole's there. I'm through.”

“When I say ‘space' do your minds hear ‘universe'? I'm through.”

“In a way,” said ?I cautiously. “There's both something extra and something less in what you say when you say hole than when we say it. I'm through.”

“When I say ‘think,' do you hear me saying ‘say'? I'm through.”

“Certainly. Did you intend to say something different? By the way, do you suppose we could stop saying ‘I'm through' so much, now? We believe we've come to understand the rhythm of your end-of-speech pauses.”

“Fine. I'll be glad to stop saying it. It was a clumsy way of taking turns talking anyway.”

“Very clumsy.”

“All right,” said Jim. “With that much out of the way, let's try this. When I say man, woman, ship, Squonk, Laagi, Earth, moon, what do you hear me saying?”

“You're just,” said ?1 “repeating the word hole, over and over again.”

“Aha!” said Mary.

“Yes,” said Jim. “Aha, indeed. ?1, I think we've got a real problem here. We aren't hearing what the other is saying at all. We're hearing the closest thing to it that our minds can find in their own experience and understanding.”

“Then you don't really know what a hole is?” said ?1.

“We don't know what you mean when you think the concept that our minds translate into the word ‘hole.' On the other hand, you use ‘hole' as a sort of general term for a great number of things that our experience teaches us are entirely different.”

“I'm distressed!” said ?1. “How can this be? A hole is a hole!”

“A hole, if I understand you correctly,” said Mary, “is any place space isn't. You make the distinction, but apparently you can travel through holes as easily as you can travel through space.”

“Why not?” said ?1.

“I'll tell you why not. Because we can travel through space, but we can't travel through what you call holes.”

“I see. Well, that makes sense,” said ?1. “A hole can't travel through a hole without one absorbing the other. We've seen little holes run into big holes and become part of them. —Forgive me. There is an exception. Sometimes, if the holes are about equal size, they both break up into a lot of smaller holes which go off in all directions.”

“Like two asteroids crashing together,” said Jim.

“That's what I said—two holes hitting each other,” replied ?1.

“The point is,” said Jim, “that we all need to understand that what we're doing is thinking at each other, not talking; and that what's received may not really be what was sent.”

“No, that's not right, either,” said Mary. “What you mean to say, Jim, is that what ?1 thinks may appear to be something we understand, when actually we aren't understanding it at all; and vice versa. The blanks in speech are when a sent concept finds no common experience to relate to in the receiver at all. So there's two problems. One, how to tell the other side about something they've never known and have no word or description for; and two, how to be aware that when the other side seems to understand a thing you mention, they're not confusing it with something else they know about, or see entirely differently.”

“Good for you, Mary,” said Jim.

“Well, I thought what you said could use a little straightening out.”

“Er… yes. I suppose. Well, ?1, what do you say to what Mary said?”

“It had relatively few blanks. We appreciate it. But I will ask a question of you both. Why do you keep identifying yourself, each other, and even me?”

Jim found himself unexpectedly at a loss as to just how to answer that.

“I think he's referring to our using names Jim,” said Mary. “We do it so that everyone present will know which one of them is being spoken to.”

“But isn't that obvious? You identify a person by speaking to her.”

“You referred to me just now as ‘her.' How would you refer to Jim, then?” Mary asked.

“I would just refer to him as him,” said ?1.

“Are you bisexual yourself, then?”

“I beg your pardon, but what you asked me if we were came through as a blank.”

“Why do you say him to Jim and her to me, if you have no concept of sexual differences?”

“The kind of differences you referred to came out as a blank,” said ?1. “But to answer your question, I simply referred. I identified no difference between you in referring.”

“You see,” said Jim, “that's exactly what I was talking about. They can say something that comes through loud and clear but doesn't necessarily mean what we think we hear—or receive, rather. ?1 just said whatever he said, and when we thought he was talking to me we heard what he said as ‘him'; and when we thought he was talking to you—”

“He
was
talking to me,” said Mary.

“—we heard it as ‘her.' ?1, what do you hear when I call you ‘?1'?”

“You say ‘you,”' answered ?1. “I must say you seem moved to say it a lot more often than is necessary.”

“How many of your friends—I mean your own people—are listening to us talk right now?”

“I would assume,” said ?1, “as many as are interested.”

“Sorry,” said Jim. “I may have phrased that a little badly. Let me ask you instead how many of your people are here, in and around the ship, listening to us talk?”

“As many as want to be, I assume,” said ?1. “I don't understand what you're striving to elucidate.”

“How many of your people are there, all together?”

“Many,” said ?1.

“Can you count?”

“I'm sorry, but what you asked if we could do came out as a blank.”

“Mathematics unknown. Do you know how what you call holes—large holes—move about?”

“Certainly. The movement of hole material has always caused a web of forces throughout the universe. By these forces are the holes moved, and the forces generated by their movements move other holes. It is the primary dance—not one of the prettiest, but quite wonderful in its own way.”

“When I say ‘stars,' does the concept come out as a blank to you?”