Free Alien Tongues by M.L. Janes Page B

sinners – at least, no more than you or I."
    "Do we Westerners believe so much in sin?"  He recalled his parish priest.  Endless booze and cigarettes had probably managed to control his sex drive.  And exactly for what purpose?
    "Séamus FitzGerald," Alice chided him playfully. "Are you arguing that, to the pure-hearted, all things is pure?"
    He grinned. "It doesn't sound a bad philosophy to me."  Sipping from a mug of tea, he added, "Going back to the demands on those girls, not much was said about how much time we expect them to spend in the lab each day.  Was that deliberate?"
    "Yes, because we have no idea and want to keep it completely flexible.  Maybe after two hours they will be exhausted.  Maybe after eight hours we can't stop them talking.  There's only two controls over time.  One is how many have gone inactive – we need at least two girls talking at the same time.  The second is the advancement of sign language.  We're happy with any amount of pidgin signing.  We just won't let them turn the signing into a creole ."
    "You mean, they can invent as many sign words as they like, they just can't build a grammar round it.  That's because you want them to save all their grammar efforts for the number language."
    Alice pointed at him with a sly smile.  "Séamus, My Boy, you're becoming an expert in this."
    "No," he told her, "I'm becoming really dangerous with a little knowledge.  You have all this managed by some amazing software, correct?  It can read their signing and figure out what's grammar and what's not?"
    "Wish we had.  The signing is fed to a team of signing experts somewhere in the world and they figure it out.  There are hundreds of sign languages so this is not going to be an exact science.  But signing grammar, like verbal grammar, tends to follow certain rules in general.  The whole point, though it sounds cruel, is to frustrate the girls.  We want them to get very interested in each others' life stories through the signing.  For example, Girl A tells Girl B that she met a guy in a bar.  Girl B learns enough through pidgin to be intrigued , but she can't really know what happened or how Girl A felt about it until they can break into a creole together.  Even if these girls didn't all share half a dozen languages already, they would rapidly develop such a creole through signing or voice.  But we have no idea if it's possible when faced with ten digits."
    It was time, Séamus thought.  "Alice, I have to ask, even if you're going to have to lie to me.  Do you know what this numerical creole is going to be used for?"
    "Séamus, I have no information on the matter, and I swear to you that's the honest truth."
    What a strange expression that is, he thought.  What other type of truth exists?  "It's probably wrong for me to ask anyway," he commented.
    Alice placed a hand on his forearm, rested on the table.  Ah, that touch, he mused.  Suddenly he was becoming very self-conscious about it, though it didn't seem to lessen the pleasure.  "Don't say that, please."  Her voice was surprisingly emotional.  "I told you I love this job and I do.  But I feel very alone here.  Wilkie is a sweetie but he's the typical professor type.  He is his work and his work is him.  This could be the end of the world and he would still keep chatting about unscientific theories like they were the ultimate danger.  I really needed someone on my wavelength with whom I can do sanity checks on all this.  I want you to really feel you can trust me, and I'm very ready to trust you, Séamus." She had kept her hand on his arm, and now gave it a small squeeze.  'I promise you that, if I know more about the project, I will tell you that fact, even if I'm not allowed to tell you what it is I know."
    He looked at her closely.  "Is there anything about this project that is worrying you?  Something you haven't yet mentioned?"
    She gazed back, shaking her head.  "Nothing, other than fear that we won't