"Our records are very, very old," she began. "Betty says thatyour word for that age is `millennia.`"

I nodded appreciatively.

"I'm very anxious to see them."

"They are not here. We will have to go into the Temple--they maynot be removed."

I was suddenly wary.

"You have no objections to my copying them, do you?"

"No. I see that you respect them, or your desire would not be sogreat."

"Excellent."

She seemed amused. I asked her what was so funny.

"The High Tongue may not be so easy for a foreigner to learn."

It came through fast.

No one on the first expedition had gotten this close. I had hadno way of knowing that this was a double-language deal--a classical aswell as a vulgar. I knew some of their Prakrit, now I had to learnall their Sanskrit.

"Ouch, and damn!"

"Pardon, please?"

"It's non-translatable, M'Cwyie. But imagine yourself having tolearn the High Tongue in a hurry, and you can guess at the sentiment."

She seemed amused again, and told me to remove my shoes.

She guided me through an alcove...

...and into a burst of Byzantine brilliance!

No Earthman had ever been in this room before, or I would have heardabout it. Carter, the first expedition's linguist, with the help ofone Mary Allen, M.D., had learned all the grammar and vocabulary thatI knew while sitting cross-legged in the antechamber.

We had had no idea this existed. Greedily, I cast my eyes about.A highly sophisticated system of esthetics lay behind the decor. Wewould have to revise our entire estimation of Martian culture.

For one thing, the ceiling was vaulted and corbeled; for another,there were side-columns with reverse flutings; for another--oh hell!The place was big. Posh. You could never have guessed it from theshaggy outsides.

I bent forward to study the gilt filigree on a ceremonial table.M'Cwyie seemed a bit smug at my intentness, but I'd still have hatedto play poker with her.

The table was loaded with books.

With my toe, I traced a mosaic on the floor.

"Is your entire city within this one building?"

"Yes, it goes far back into the mountain."

"I see," I said, seeing nothing.

I couldn't ask her for a conducted tour, yet.

She moved to a small stool by the table.

"Shall we begin your friendship with the High Tongue?"

I was trying to photograph the hall with my eyes, knowing I wouldhave to get a camera in here, somehow, sooner or later. I tore mygaze from a statuette and nodded, hard.

"Yes, introduce me."

I sat down.

For the next three weeks alphabet-bugs chased each other behind myeyelids whenever I tried to sleep. The sky was an unclouded pool ofturquoise that rippled calligraphies whenever I swept my eyes acrossit. I drank quarts of coffee while I worked and mixed cocktails ofBenzedrine and champagne for my coffee breaks.

M'Cwyie tutored me two hours every morning, and occasionally foranother two in the evening. I spent an additional fourteen hours aday on my own, once I had gotten up sufficient momentum to go aheadalone.

And at night the elevator of time dropped me to its bottomfloors...

I was six again, learning my Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Aramaic. I wasten, sneaking peeks at the Iliad. When Daddy wasn't spreadinghellfire brimstone, and brotherly love, he was teaching me to dig theWord, like in the original.

Lord! There are so many originals and so many words! When Iwas twelve I started pointing out the little differences between whathe was preaching and what I was reading.

The fundamentalist vigor of his reply brooked no debate. It wasworse than any beating. I kept my mouth shut after that and learnedto appreciate Old Testament poetry.

--Lord, I am sorry! Daddy--Sir--I am sorry! --It couldn't be! Itcouldn't be....

On the day the boy graduated from high school, with the French,German, Spanish, and Latin awards, Dad Gallinger had told hisfourteen-year old, six-foot scarecrow of a son that he wanted him toenter the ministry. I remember how his son was evasive:

"Sir," he had said, "I'd sort of like to study on my own for ayear or so, and then take pre-theology courses at some liberal artsuniversity. I feel I'm still sort of young to try a seminary,straight off."

The Voice of God: "But you have the gift of tongues, my son. Youcan preach the Gospel in all the lands of Babel. You were born to bea missionary. You say you are young, but time is rushing by you likea whirlwind. Start early, and you will enjoy added years of service."

The added years of service were so many added tails to the catrepeatedly laid on my back. I can't see his face now; I never can.Maybe it was because I was always afraid to look at it then.

And years later, when he was dead, and laid out, in black, amidstbouquets, amidst weeping congregationalists, amidst prayers, redfaces, handkerchiefs, hands patting your shoulders, solemn facedcomforters...I looked at him and did not recognize him.

We had met nine months before my birth, this stranger and I. Hehad never been cruel--stern, demanding, with contempt for everyone'sshortcomings--but never cruel. He was also all that I had had of amother. And brothers. And sisters. He had tolerated my three yearsat St. John's, possibly because of its name, never knowing how liberaland delightful a place it really was.

But I never knew him, and the man atop the catafalque demandednothing now; I was free not to preach the Word. But now I wanted to,in a different way. I wanted to preach a word that I never could havevoiced while he lived.

I did not return for my senior year in the fall. I had a smallinheritance coming, and a bit of trouble getting control of it, sinceI was still under eighteen. But I managed.

It was Greenwich Village I finally settled upon.

Not telling any well-meaning parishioners my new address, Ientered into a daily routine of writing poetry and teaching myselfJapanese and Hindustani. I grew a fiery beard, drank espresso, andlearned to play chess. I wanted to try a couple of the other paths tosalvation.

After that, it was two years in India with the Old PeaceCorps--which broke me of my Buddhism, and gave me my Pipes of Krishnalyrics and the Pulitzer they deserved.

Then back to the States for my degree, grad work in linguistics,and more prizes.

Then one day a ship went to Mars. The vessel settling in its NewMexico nest of fires contained a new language. --It was fantastic,exotic, and esthetically overpowering. After I had learned all therewas to know about it, and written my book, I was famous in newcircles:

"Go, Gallinger. Dip your bucket in the well, and bring us a drinkof Mars. Go, learn another world--but remain aloof, rail at it gentlylike Auden--and hand us its soul in iambics.

And I came to the land where the sun is a tarnished penny, wherethe wind is a whip, where two moons play at hot rod games, and a hellof sand gives you incendiary itches whenever you look at it.

I rose from my twisting on the bunk and crossed the darkened cabin toa port. The desert was a carpet of endless orange, bulging from thesweepings of centuries beneath it.

"I am a stranger, unafraid--This is the land--I've got it made!"

I laughed.

I had the High Tongue by the tail already--or the roots, if youwant your puns anatomical, as well as correct.

The High and Low tongues were not so dissimilar as they had firstseemed. I had enough of the one to get me through the murkier partsof the other. I had the grammar and all the commoner irregular verbsdown cold; the dictionary I was constructing grew by the day, like atulip, and would bloom shortly. Every time I played the tapes thestem lengthened.