3
got to be a first time for everything." Griffin opened the door and started climbing the hill toward Kung Su and Pruneface.
* * * * *
"Well, have you gotten beyond the 'me, Charlie' stage yet?" Griffin inquired at breakfast two days later.
Kung Su gave an inscrutable East Los Angeles smile. "As a matter of fact, I'm a little farther along. Joe is amazingly coöperative."
"Joe?"
"Spell it Chou if you want to be exotic. It's still pronounced Joe and that's his name. The language is monosyllabic and tonal. I happen to know a similar language."
"You mean this humanoid speaks Chinese?" Griffin was never sure whether Kung was ribbing him or not.
"Not Chinese. The vocabulary is different but the syntax and phonemes are nearly identical. I'll speak it perfectly in a week. It's just a question of memorizing two or three thousand new words. Incidentally, Joe wants to know why you're digging up his bottom land. He was all set to flood it today."
"Don't tell me he plants rice!" Griffin exclaimed.
"I don't imagine it's rice, but it needs flooding whatever it is."
"Ask him how many humanoids there are on this planet."
"I'm way ahead of you, Griffin. He says there are only a few thousand left. The rest were all destroyed in a war with the barbarians."
"Barbarians?"
"They're extinct."
"How many races were there?"
"I'll get to that if you'll stop interrupting," Kung rejoined testily. "Joe says there are only two kinds of people, his own dark, straight-haired kind and the barbarians. They have curly hair, white skin and round eyes. You'd pass for a barbarian, according to Joe, only you don't have a faceful of hair. He wants to know how things are going on the other planets."
"I suppose that's my cue to break into a cold sweat and feel a premonition of disaster." Griffin tried to smile and almost made it.
"Not necessarily, but it seems our iron-age man is fairly well informed in extraplanetary affairs."