Free Out Of The Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

noted in a dry, objective way that this
was apparently to be the end of his story - caught between a 'sorn' from the land and a big,
black animal from the water. He had, it is true, a vague notion that the jaws and mouth of
the beast were not those of a carnivore; but he knew that he was too ignorant of zoology to
do more than guess.
    Then something happened which completely altered his state of mind. The creature, which was
still steaming and shaking itself on the bank and had obviously not seen him, opened its
mouth and began to make noises. This in itself was not remarkable; but a lifetime of
linguistic study assured Ransom almost at once that these were articulate noises. The
creature was talking. It had language. If you are not yourself a philologist, I am afraid
you must take on trust the prodigious emotional consequences of this realization in Ransom's
mind. A new world he had already seen - but a new, an extra-terrestrial, a non-human language
was a different matter. Somehow he had not thought of this in connexion with the sorns;
now, it flashed upon him like a revelation. The love of knowledge is a kind of madness. In
the fraction of a second which it took Ransom to decide that the creature was really talking,
and while he still knew that he might be facing instant death, his imagination had leaped
over every fear and hope and probability of his situation to follow the dazzling project
of making a Malacandrian grammar. An Introduction to the Malacandrian Language - The Lunar
Verb - A Concise Martian-English Dictionary .. . the titles flitted through his mind. And
what might one not discover from the speech of a non-human race? The very form of language
itself, the principle behind all possible languages, might fall into his hands. Unconsciously
he raised himself on his elbow and stared at the black beast. It became silent. The huge
bullet head swung round and lustrous amber eyes fixed him. There was no wind on the lake or in
the wood. Minute after minute in utter silence the representatives of two so far-divided
species stared each into the other's face.
    Ransom rose to his knees. The creature leaped back, watching him intently, and they became
motionless again. Then it came a pace nearer, and Ransom jumped up and retreated, but not
far; curiosity held him. He summoned up his courage and advanced holding out his hand; the
beast misunderstood the gesture. It backed into the shallows of the lake and he could see
the muscles tightened under its sleek pelt, ready for sudden movement. But there it stopped;
it, too, was in the grip of curiosity. Neither dared let the other approach, yet each repeatedly
felt the impulse to do so himself, and yielded to it. It was foolish, frightening, ecstatic
and unbearable all in one moment. It was more than curiosity. It was like a courtship - like
the meeting of the first man and the first woman in the world; it was like something beyond
that; so natural is the contact of sexes, so limited the strangeness, so shallow the reticence,
so mild the repugnance to be overcome, compared with the first tingling intercourse of two
different, but rational, species.
    The creature suddenly turned and began walking away. A disappointment like despair smote Ransom.
'Come back,' he shouted in English. The thing turned, spread out its arms and spoke again in
its unintelligible language; then it resumed its progress. It had not gone more than twenty
yards away when Ransom saw it stoop down and pick something up. It returned. In its hand
(he was already thinking of its webbed fore-paw as a hand) it was carrying what appeared to
be a shell - the shell of some oyster-like creature, but rounder and more deeply domed. It
dipped the shell in the lake and raised it full of water. Then it held the shell to its own
middle and seemed to be pouring something into the water. Ransom thought with disgust that
it was urinating in the shell. Then he realized that the protuberances