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The odds were millions to one against her system being anything like the original sound of the language, but she had listed several thousand Martian words, and she could pronounce all of them. And that was as far as it went. She could pronounce between three and four thousand Martian words, and she couldn't assign a meaning to one of them. Selim von Ohlmhorst believed that she never would.
The people here were trying to keep a civilization running after the rest of the planet had gone back to barbarism; I suppose they'd have to fight off raids by the barbarians now and then." "You're not going to insist on making this building into expedition quarters, I hope, colonel?" von Ohlmhorst asked anxiously. "Oh, no! This place is an archaeological treasure-house.
Colonel Penrose looked up quickly, as though making a mental note to attend to something later. Then he returned his attention to the pilot, who was pointing something out on a map. Von Ohlmhorst nodded. "There wasn't much to it, at that," he agreed. "Do you know which building Tony has decided to enter next?" "The tall one with the conical thing like a candle extinguisher on top, I think.
This was a big city, in its prime," Martha said, moved chiefly by a desire to oppose Lattimer. "Yes, but think of the snafu in the halls, every time they changed classes. It'd take half an hour to get everybody back and forth from one floor to another." He turned to von Ohlmhorst. "I'm going up above this floor.
"More important work, I'd be inclined to say." Von Ohlmhorst was visibly distressed; he glanced once toward Sid Chamberlain, then looked hastily away from him. Afraid of a story of dissension among archaeologists getting out. "Working out a system of pronunciation by which the Martian language could be transliterated was a most important contribution," he said.
"Friedrich lived to see the Hittite language deciphered and read," von Ohlmhorst reminded him. "Yes, when they found Hittite-Assyrian bilinguals." Lattimer measured a spoonful of coffee-powder into his cup and added hot water. "Martha, you ought to know, better than anybody, how little chance you have.
I want to call the others " He was still babbling as he hurried from the room. Sachi looked at the inscription. "Is it true?" she asked, and then, before Martha could more than begin to explain, flung her arms around her. "Oh, it really is! You are reading it! I'm so happy!" She had to start explaining again when Selim von Ohlmhorst entered. This time, she was able to finish.
I can wait the rest of my life, if I have to, but I'll do it sometime." "I can't wait so long," von Ohlmhorst said. "The rest of my life will only be a few years, and when the Schiaparelli orbits in, I'll be going back to Terra on the Cyrano." "I wish you wouldn't. This is a whole new world of archaeology. Literally." "Yes."
"That seems like a pretty pointless distinction," Selim von Ohlmhorst joined the conversation. "There no longer exists a means of deciphering it." "We'll find one." She was speaking, she realized, more in self-encouragement than in controversy. "How? From pictures and captions? We've found captioned pictures, and what have they given us?
I was two years old, then," von Ohlmhorst chuckled. "I really don't know how much that publicity ever did for Egyptology. Oh, the museums did devote more space to Egyptian exhibits, and after a museum department head gets a few extra showcases, you know how hard it is to make him give them up. And, for a while, it was easier to get financial support for new excavations.
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