ment
came next, but in Martian it was _Sarfalddavas_. _Sorn_ must mean
matter, or substance, then. And _davas_; she was trying to think of what
it could be. She turned quickly to the others, catching hold of Hubert
Penrose's arm with one hand and waving her clipboard with the other.

"Look at this thing, over here," she was clamoring excitedly. "Tell me
what you think it is. Could it be a table of the elements?"

They all turned to look. Mort Tranter stared at it for a moment.

"Could be. If I only knew what those squiggles meant--"

That was right; he'd spent his time aboard the ship.

"If you could read the numbers, would that help?" she asked, beginning
to set down the Arabic digits and their Martian equivalents. "It's
decimal system, the same as we use."

"Sure. If that's a table of elements, all I'd need would be the numbers.
Thanks," he added as she tore off the sheet and gave it to him.

Penrose knew the numbers, and was ahead of him. "Ninety-two items,
numbered consecutively. The first number would be the atomic number.
Then a single word, the name of the element. Then the atomic weight--"

She began reading off the names of the elements. "I know hydrogen and
helium; what's _tirfalddavas_, the third one?"

"Lithium," Tranter said. "The atomic weights aren't run out past the
decimal point. Hydrogen's one plus, if that double-hook dingus is a plus
sign; Helium's four-plus, that's right. And lithium's given as seven,
that isn't right. It's six-point nine-four-oh. Or is that thing a
Martian minus sign?"

"Of course! Look! A plus sign is a hook, to hang things together; a
minus sign is a knife, to cut something off from something--see, the
little loop is the handle and the long pointed loop is the blade.
Stylized, of course, but that's what it is. And the fourth element,
kiradavas; what's that?"

"Beryllium. Atomic weight given as nine-and-a-hook; actually it's
nine-point-oh-two."

Sid Chamberlain had been disgruntled because he couldn't get a story
about the Martians having developed atomic energy. It took him a few
minutes to understand the newest development, but finally it dawned on
him.

"Hey! You're reading that!" he cried. "You're reading Martian!"

"That's right," Penrose told him. "Just reading it right off. I don't
get the two items after the atomic weight, though. They look like months
of the Martian calendar. What ought they to be, Mort?"

* * * * *

Tran