Free The Ship Who Won by Anne McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye

with a light-brown pelt, youngsters working with me digging crews
    threw piles of the roots onto groundsheets, which were
    pulled behind shaggy six-legged pack beasts up and down
    the rows. When each sheet was full, the beast was led away
    and another took its place.
    "So what's the next step in this production line?" Keff
    asked, shifting slightly to see.
    The female led the beast to a square marked out by
    hand-sized rocks, making sure nothing fell off as she
    guided the animal over the rock boundary. Once inside,
    she detached the groundsheet. Turning the beast, she led
    it back to the field where more folded groundsheets were
    piled.
    "But if they live in the cave, over there," Keff said, in
    surprise, "why are they leaving the food over here?"
    "Maybe the roots need to dry out a litde before they can
    be stored, so they won't rot," Carialle said. "Or maybe they
    stink. You find out for yourself when we make contact.
    Here, visitor, eat roots. Good!"
    "No, thanks," Keff said.
    The six-legged draft animal waited placidly while the
    young female attached a new sheet to its harness. The
    beast bore a passing resemblance to a Terran shire horse,
    except for the six legs and a double dip of its spine over the
    extra set of shoulder-hips. Under layers of brown dust, its
    coat was thick and plushy: good protection against the cold
    wind. Some of the garments and tool pouches worn by the
    aborigines were undoubtedly manufactured out of such
    hide. Keff gazed curiously at the creature's feet. Not at all
    hooflike: each had three stubby toes with blunt claws and a
    thick sole that looked as tough as stone. The pack beast
    walked with the same patient gait whether the travois
    behind it was fully loaded or not.
    "Strong," Keff said. "I bet one of those six-legged
    packs-hmm, six-packs!-could haul you uphill."
    Carialle snorted. "I'd like to see it try."
    Team leaders called out orders with hand signals, directing workers to new rows. The workers chattered among
    themselves, shouting cheerfully while they stripped roots
    and banged them on the ground to loosen some of the
    clinging soil. Carialle could almost hear Xeno gibbering
    with joy when they saw the hedrons she was recording for
    them.
    "Funny," Keff said, after a while. "I feel as if I should
    understand what they're saying. The pace of their conversation is similar to Standard. There's cadence, but
    measured, not too fast, and it's not inflected like, say, Old
    Terran Asian."
    A thickly furred mother called to her child, playing in a
    depression of the dusty earth with a handful of other naked
    tykes. It ignored her and went on with its game, a serious
    matter of the placement of pebbles. The mother called
    again, her voice on a rising note of annoyance. When the
    child turned to look, she repeated her command, punctuating her words with a spiraling gesture other right hand.
    The child, eyes wide with alarm, stood up at once and ran
    over. After getting a smack on the bottom for disobedience, the child listened to instructions, then ran away, past
    the cave entrance and around the rise of the hill.
    "Verrrry interesting," Keff said. "She didn't say anything different, but that child certainly paid attention when
    she made that hand gesture. Somewhere along the line
    they've evolved a somatic element in their language."
    "Or the other way around," Carialle suggested, focusing
    on the gesture and replaying it in extreme close-up. "How
    do you know the hand signals didn't come first?"
    "I'd have to make a study on it," Keff said seriously, "but
    I'd speculate because common, everyday symbols are handled with verbal phrases, the hand signals probably came
    later. I wonder why it evolved that way?"
    "Could a percentage of them be partially hearing-impaired or deaf?"
    "Not when they have such marked cadence and rhythm
    in their speech," Keff replied. "I doubt this level of agricul-turalist would evolve lipreading. Hmm. I could compare it
    to the Saxon/Norman juxtaposition on Old