Astounding Science Fiction (British edition) — page 69: what you’re looking at

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

SHARE OUR WORLD 67 turned. “Hello, Balch. You got the movies from the trip taken around?” “Yeah.” He stretched. ““Schematics to do yet, but you come first.” He gave her a small, public kiss, and sat down on the ground next to her. Her hand stroked his shoulder shyly. “I want to talk to you, I really do, but I can’t think about anything but this just now.” “I. know what you mean.” “I’m very glad you made it down here when you did. Sumer has radioed that our envoys have made contact with a herd, so if anything’s going to happen here it’ll be soon.” “You'll have plenty of helpers with or without me. There’s still enough of a holiday atmosphere around the ship that your meeting will attract a crowd of spectators sure.” “Oh, there’ll be people to help.” She gazed meditatively at the forest. “J want you specially, though: to handle the second communicator.” “Huh? How about Hilda?” ‘Well, she knows the instrument better than you, but Judy’s having a real serious talk with Hilda at the moment.” *“Oh,) of course.” “It’s just as well for you to do it. You think more like a nibbly.” He laughed gently in a way that made her very conscious of his close- ness. “Do I? A few days ago I wouldn’t have said either of us quite had the nibbly touch.” “I know: difficulty with co-opera- tion. I don’t feel that way any more.” “Why? Because I had a bright idea?”’ “That’s not the reason; you’ve had bright ideas before. And your second ess will be wrong too, so don’t make it.”” She laughed and leaned closer to him. “It’s just that I understand you better now. Furthermore, I am not being cryptic, and furthermore I love you.” They stayed there quietly in the blue sunlight, Chang giving snatches of last-minute advice to Balch as she. thought of them, until the copter appeared overhead and a procession of twenty-odd. nibblies filed out of the shade of the forest. Then everything was activity. Chang and Balch switched on their equipment and ran a final check: an AC signal from Chang’s signal genera- tors showed up on her two oscillo- scopes in identical smooth waves; then cutting in the side circuits in turn produced various modifications of the curves on the screens. The nib- blies split into two groups, both of which huddled, while messengers ran back and forth between the two periodically. The sentries pulled in closer. Sumer landed his copter, and he and Melkote came over to offer their services; they were put to work taking movies of the proceedings. As Chang had predicted, several of the crew who had been aboard the ship came out to watch; two of them were asked to stand by to help with any adjustments on the communicator circuits. One group of nibblies came straight to Chang’s table and gathered round the contact she’d put there for them; the other group did the same at Balch’s table. So they’d understood that much. Chang felt that her worries were half over already. But the harder half remained. The preliminaries were merely irri- tating: the output from her signal generator to be reduced, the high peak voltages to be cut off, and other such pesky adjustments. Then when the nibblies finally seemed staisfied that she was speaking in a normal conver- sational tone, she settled down to see what would happen. Her vocabulary gained from interviews with Brian was of course much more extensive Cconniclooolks.conn