Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 their original theory that the nibblies’ “code” was in terms of beeps at different frequencies. Balch had listened with increasing excitement, and now he interrupted with, ‘“Why’d you give that up? After all, that’s the basis of our spoken language, and we use about the same frequency range.” “Well,” said Chang, “‘two reasons. In the first place, the nibbly’s receiv- ing apparatus presumably detects the actual current flow directly, rather than responding to different frequen- cies separately the way our ear does. In the second place, the theory didn’t get us anywhere.” “But you can’t have tried it very long,” Balch protested. ‘How far do you think you’d get toward under- standing human talk in one day if you had to look at it recorded on a piece of paper frequency by fre- quency?” “Not very far, it’s true. But at least when you saw the same word in front of you it’d look the same both times.”’ “Not if... oh, let’s say the first time it was ‘two’ and the second time it was ‘a pair’.”’ “J know,” Chang said wearily. ‘Synonyms. But we might as well keep trying different things until we get something. We tried assuming that the nibbly actually senses the wave form of a signal.” ‘“‘And consciously modifies the wave form of the signal he sends out?” “That’s what we assume. But I don’t know about the ‘consciously’ part of it; I’m not even sure that what he’s doing isn’t more analogous to a human’s laughing when he’s tickled.” (Hilda snorted, muttered, ‘“‘Pessi- mist!) “Also, Balch, the signal he sends out is the same as the signal he receives!” What!” ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION ““He never sends except when I’m sending too, and then he always does. It’s as if you were almost deaf except when you were talking to me, and almost dumb except when I was talk- ing to you.” ‘A strange language.” “Very strange. This point is signifi- 3 cant, Balch—of something.” “So anyhow,” Balch encouraged her, “you must have got some results working on your second theory, if you can say all this so confidently.” “We got results of some sort,” she said non-committally. | Hilda broke in impatiently. “You got absolutely conclusive results,” she asserted, stabbing the air with her forefinger. Chang smiled. “How do you know? All I’m sure of is that I gave myself the willies. “Look, Balch. Here’s what I ‘spoke’ with.” He followed her over to the table. ““We’ve got two of these now, but this is the one I used. A variable condenser and a variable resistance here, to adjust the fundamental signal. Here, I can cut in ten side circuits with non-linear response, to change the wave form. I haven’t tried yet to use more than four of them at once. This screen on the oscilloscope is to see what I’m sending. ““Here’s what I ‘listen’ with. Simply a scope which gives me the wave that’s passing between me and the nibbly.” “Simple enough.” “No, not so simple. I get something back from him, something compli- cated enough that it could be language, but not enough pattern. Balch, what can I do? I don’t know the syllables, how can I learn the language? In fact, there aren’t any syllables. ’'m not a nibbly, my instruments don’t cor- respond to what the nibbly uses— well, not closely. All I can do is just throw my mind open and twiddle with Cconnicloooks.c© ae