She waited, but she didn’t have to wait as long as she had feared. It was only about an hour till the response began to come through. The first sign of it was the dimming of the lights and the vibration of the building as the auxiliary generators cut in, for the translation device seemed to be laboring under a heavy, unaccustomed load. But the machine had amazing resources. It could translate anything, anything.

  Then the answer came.

  “Energine,” came the answer. “That call letter? That name? That world? That people? That what?

  “Jubilation here to learn that there is friendly life on your world. Your world previously ignored as little bit sick. You know sick? Word sick? Possibly first word mutually understanding.

  “Comprehending all your communication except the words. What is lonely? What is hearts? What is club? What is grow very close together? What is a Charley? What is picture? What is Mexican? What is kid? What is little flat pancake thing? What is cardboard? What is a Fred and Harold and other entities?

  “Word love understood intuitively. Explain mechanics of thing with you. Extreme variation in different sectors. In ecstasy of symbiosis which one swallow who?

  “Yes, answer, answer, answer, whatever that means. What is Selby? What is Norbert? What means wait right here? What means morning? Rapport also understood intuitively. We be so completely. We how many? You group or integer? Send how to roast kid stuffed. What is roast kid stuffed? Delirious interest here in subject, sure to increase when we know what subject consist of. Also love you already passionately. What is passionately? What is already?—

  KGG3LP*Y UU—Albert-(Tentative).”

  He had answered. Albert-(Tentative) had answered. He had understood all of her communication except the words. They were in perfect rapport.

  The translation device shuddered and groaned after the effort. Then it panted softly and fell to sibilant silence. The building was quiet and the night gathered lovely about it.

  The first and most difficult step of the IDT Project had been achieved after twelve years. The rest would follow. Others would venture where Energine had pioneered. The glad news of the achievement was given to the world.

  The matter and exact wording of the two messages were not, however, given to the world. These remained classified. In the early contacts with aliens there are always details which will seem incongruous to the unlearned.

  Others tried the feat with some success, and Energine repeated it again and again. The rapport grew. Soon Albert Tentative began to understand some of the words as well as the feelings of the messages. Small misunderstandings were gradually set right, as one from Albert—

  “You ask if we can be sure that we are of opposite sex? How not opposite? With us are five sexes. Everybody partake of several, so everybody a little opposite. This make for clarity. Surely you drollery when you say there only two on your world.

  “You wish to see me but say it is impossible. Why in kss@#rr*WQ”—‘mild profanity’.—Trans, note—“it not possible? Travel no problem with us. It problem with you? You want me—I be there. Like in little verse we find in Block Massive Cultural Transmission Corpus from your world, ‘Brush your tooth, say your prayer, go to sleep, I be there.’ What brush? What tooth? What prayer? What sleep? What it mean, understanding that great poetry not always to be taken literally? Profound poetry from your world having great appeal here. Also Aristotle loke Book and fragments of Sport Page Statistic Epic Cycle. Decline in your civilization, huh? No .400 hitters for years.

  “Who I see buy stock on exchange? Always looking for sound investment. All difficulties erased when we see each other. Albert Tentative.”

  “He is coming to see me,” said Energine dreamily.

  “It is possibly a translation error,” cautioned Smirnov. “Perhaps there has been omitted a phrase such as ‘What mean come see me?’ You know it would be impossible that he should come. Our Block Massive Cultural Transmission will not be digested by them all at once. I am pleased at the success it has already had.”

  “He is coming to see me,” said Energine.

  “No, no, girl. That couldn’t be. You are deluded, but I can never tell you how much I appreciate what you have done.”

  “He is coming to see me.”

  “No, he is not. It is completely out of the question.”

  He came to see her.

  It was known that he had arrived, that something had arrived. Instruments of a dozen sorts had recorded him. “Albert Tentative arrives” was the glad word, but where was he, what was he? He seemed to be invisible and inaudible. But for the evidence of the instruments there were some who would have doubted the arrival of Albert in the world.

  “I want a week off,” said Energine to Gregory Smirnov. “No, I want a year off. Albert and I have so much to say to each other that we will never get it all said. And we’re going to get married if we can figure out how to go about it. I really need some private advice on that. But look, just look!”

  “A very beautiful and odd ring, Energine. Did he give it to you?”

  “Did he give what to me?”

  The ring was a sort of furry metal. It glowed and it changed colors. It circled the chubby little finger of Energine, and she held it up to her cheek.

  “I had no idea that anything could be so wonderful,” she raptured. “We’re so happy together. We went to the new Syrian restaurant last night and had camel pur£e. It’s so cute the way he eats it.”

  “How, Energine?”

  “Gets right down in the bowl.”

  “Ah—Energine—let’s get to the point. Where is Albert Tentative? It’s important that we see him and examine him. Where is he?”

  “Why, right here, Mr. Smirnov. Did you ever see anyone like him?”

  “No, I never did, mainly because I can’t see him at all.”

  “Can’t you see him? Why, I never suspected that. You mean that I’m the only one who can see him?”

  “Patience, Patience, thou universal regent, do not desert me now! What does he look like, Energine?”

  “Why, he’s round and shining and furry, and he changes color.”

  “Energine, the ring he gave you—”

  “Mr. Smirnov, that is no ring. That is my Albert. Oh, Albert, he thought you were a ring. How funny!”

  Albert Tentative was of great interest for about three weeks. There was first of all the epic press conference that Gregory Smirnov set up for him as soon as the method of plugging Albert in and giving him amplification was discovered. It might be said that there was first and last of all the epic press conference.

  It was a success, let there be no doubt of that. It was a total success. There were those who came to wonder if the success was not too total.

  There was resentment at first that foreign correspondents were not alerted and given a chance to attend it. Some came anyhow to see what they could pick up after it was over with, and found that it was not over with. Albert was still talking when they got there; he had been talking for a week.

  Albert was a fine talker, now that he knew the words. The pidgin of the translation device had been that of the device, not of Albert. He answered all questions completely, oh how completely! He went into a spate and answered questions that had never been asked, and the newsmen and personages listened to him in relays, fascinated.

  After a week of standing by, Energine—whose finger Albert had long since abandoned for many others—said that she thought she would go out to get something to eat She looked dazed. She did not come back.

  Albert answered the questions of the Chinese and the Arabs. He answered the questions of all the newsmen of Earth. He also had a Block Massive Cultural Transmission Corpus which he wanted to communicate. He recited the Epic Gilmish in which is comprised all wisdom. That took him thirty hours, perhaps not too long a period to be given to a work that comprises all wisdom. But the listeners were of flesh and blood, and nobody knew what Albert was.

  Gregory Smirnov stayed with it two weeks and then walked out. He shouldn’t have done it as he was the host, but there was a weakness in the great man that manifested itself here. He went to see the President of the Republic.

  “Suggest Project’s discontinuance,” he said to the President.

  “But Mr. Smirnov, is not the Project a colossal success?”

  “Quite.”

  “But you have now established rapport with a completely alien being for the first time.”

  “Unfortunately. And perhaps not alien enough.”

  “Possibly you yourself are burnt out by your great labors on the Project.”

  “Possibly.”

  “I would be unwilling to abandon the Project now that it has proved such an outstanding success. Perhaps we should transfer the operation to another group. Could you suggest another group that might be able to handle it?”

  “Enfield’s Automations.”

  “An excellent suggestion. They’re a bunch of comers. We will take steps for the transfer of authority.”

  “Good-by,” said Smirnov, and left.

  “Did you notice that he seemed very short-spoken today?” the President asked one of his aides when Smirnov had left.

  Albert Tentative was a great success for about three weeks. Then the Project was turned over to Enfield’s Automations, and the whole thing went on automatic. Albert is still talking.

  It was some time later that Gregory Smirnov met Valery Mok on the street.

  “Well?” he asked her.

  “I, yes. You, I hope. News?”

  “Of the bunch? Cogsworth dead. Shiplap mad. Glasser vanished.”

  “Energine?”

  “Nun.”

  “Which?”

  “Contemplative. Not talk, you know.”

  “Their address?”

  “Here.”

  “Thanks.”

  Smirnov went to have a glossotomy performed on himself, as well as an intricate operation on the ears. So they all arranged their lives.

  In their final solution they all owed much to Albert Tentative. For in his recitation of the Epic Gilmish he had omitted nothing, not even the remarkable five-hour speech on the medicinal value of silence.

  The Transcendent Tigers

  This was the birthday of Carnadine Thompson. She was seven years old. Thereby she left her childhood behind her, and came into the fullness of her powers. This was her own phrase, and her own idea of the importance of the milestone.

  There were others, mostly adult, who thought that she was a peculiarly backward little girl in some ways, though precocious in others.

  She received for her birthday four presents: a hollow, white rubber ball, a green plastic frog, a red cap and a little wire puzzle.

  She immediately tore the plastic frog apart, considering it a child’s toy. So much for that.

  She put on the cap, saying that it had been sent by her Genie as a symbol of her authority. In fact none of them knew who had sent her the red cap. The cap is important. If it weren’t important, it wouldn’t be mentioned.

  Carnadine quickly worked the wire puzzle, and then unworked it again. Then she did something with the hollow, white rubber ball that made her mother’s eyes pop out. Nor did they pop all the way in again when Carnadine undid it and made it as it was before.

  Geraldine Thompson had been looking pop-eyed for a long time. Her husband had commented on it, and she had been to the doctor for it. No medical reason was found, but the actual reason was some of die antics of her daughter Cama-dine.

  “I wonder if you noticed the small wire puzzle that I gave to my daughter,” said Tyburn Thompson to his neighbor, H. Horn.

  “Only to note that it probably cost less than a quarter,” said Horn, “and to marvel again at the canny way you have with coin. I wouldn’t call you stingy, Tyburn. I’ve never believed in the virtues of understatement. You have a talent for making stingy people seem benevolent.”

  “I know. Many people misunderstand me. But consider that wire puzzle. It’s a very simple-appearing puzzle, but it’s twenty-four centuries old. It is unworkable, of course, so it should keep Carnadine occupied for some time. She has an excess of energy. This is one of the oldest of the unworkable puzzles.”

  “But, Tyburn, she just worked it,” said his wife Geraldine. “It is one of the nine impossible apparatus puzzles listed by Anaximandros in the fifth century before the common era,” continued Tyburn. “And do you know, in all the centuries since then, there have been only two added to the list.”

  “Carnadine,” said her mother, “let me see you work that again.”

  Carnadine worked it again.

  “The reason it is unworkable,” said Tyburn, “though apparent to me as a design engineer, may not be so readily apparent to you. It has to do with odds and evens of lays. Many of the unworkable classic puzzles are cordage puzzles, as is this actually. It is a wire miniature of a cordage puzzle. It is said that this is the construction of the Gordian knot. The same, however, is said of two other early cordage puzzles.”

  “But she just worked it, Tyburn, twice,” said the wife.

  “Stop chattering, Geraldine. I am explaining something to Horn. Men have spent years on the puzzle, the Engineering Mind and the recognition of patent impossibility being less prevalent in past centuries. And this, I believe, is the best of all the impossible ones. It is misleading. It looks as though there would surely be a way to do it.”

  “I just believe that I could do it, Tyburn,” said Horn.

  “No, you could not. You’re a stubborn man, and it’d drive you crazy. It’s quite impossible. You would have to take it into another dimension to work it, and then bring it back.” Carnadine once more did something with the hollow rubber ball.

  “How did you make the robber ball turn red and then white again, Carnadine?” her mother asked her.

  “Turned it inside out. It’s red on the inside.”

  “But how did you turn it inside out without tearing it?”

  “It’d spoil it to tear it, mama.”

  “But it’s impossible to turn it inside out without tearing it.”

  “Not if you have a red cap it isn’t.”

  “Dear, how do you work the puzzle that your father says can’t be worked?”

  “Like this.”

  “Oh, yes. I mean, how does it happen that you can work it when nobody else could ever work it before?”

  “There has to be a first time for everything, mama.”

  “Maybe, but there has to be a first-class explanation to go with that first time.”

  “It’s on account of the red cap. With this cap I can do anything.”

  So Carnadine Thompson in the fullness of her powers, and in her red cap, went out to find the rest of the Bengal Tigers. This was the most exclusive society in the world. It had only one full member, herself, and three contingent or defective members, her little brother Eustace, Fatty Frost, and Peewee Horn. Children all three of them, the oldest not within three months of her age.

  The Bengal Tigers was not well known to the world at large, having been founded only the day before. Carnadine Thompson was made First Stripe for life. There were no other offices.

  Yet, for a combination of reasons, the Bengal Tigers now became the most important society in the world. The new power was already in being. It was only a question of what form it would take, but it seemed to show a peculiar affiliation for this esoteric society.

  Clement Chardin, writing in Bulletin de la Société Parahis-torique Française, expressed a novel idea:

  It is no longer a question whether there he transcendent powers. These have now come so near to us that the aura of them ruffles our very hair. We are the objects of a visitation. The Power to Move Mountains and Worlds is at hand. The Actuality of the Visitation is proved, though the methods of the detection cannot now be revealed.

  The question is only whether there is any individual or group with the assurance to grasp that Power. It will not be given lightly. It will not come to the craven or contabescent. There is the sad possibility that there may be none ready in the World to receive the Power. This may not be the first Visitation, but it may well be the last. But the Power, whatever its form and essence (it is real, its presence had been detected by fine instrumentation), the Power, the Visitation may pass us by as unworthy.

  This parenthetical for those who might not have read it in the journal.

  That which struck just West of Kearney, Nebraska, was an elemental force. The shock of it was heard around the world, and its suction flattened farmhouses and bams for miles.

  The area of the destruction was an almost perfect circle about two miles in diameter, so just over two thousand acres were destroyed. The first reports said that it was like no disaster ever known. Later reports said that it was like every disaster ever known; and it did have points of resemblance to all.

  There was the great crater as though a meteorite had struck; there was the intense heat and the contamination as though it had been of fissionable origin; there was an afterflow of lava and the great ash clouds as though it were the super volcanic explosion of another Krakatoa. There was the sudden silence of perhaps two seconds actually, and perhaps two hours as to human response. And then the noise of all sorts.

  The early reports said that the hole was three miles deep. That was said simply to have a figure and to avoid panic. It was not known how deep the hole was.

 

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