Chapter 26

But nothing happened—nothing untoward, nothing threatening, nothing radically different. Not that night, not the next day or night, not the next nor the one after that. Nothing to confirm Igwanda's lingering suspicions or to provide even the slightest hint of substantiation. He was the guard at the gate that no enemy sought to storm.

The natives continued to come and go with the greater freedom they had claimed at the conclusion of the pavilion's construction. Some of the original pairings remained intact; the initial quartet of Joe and Gus with Meiersdottir and Lee were a fixture, with others of both species joining and leaving ad hoc, and Akakha continued to shadow Igwanda's footsteps. But other relationships altered; Heisinger, originally matched with Oglura, found a more compatible companion in another native introduced as Agula who had apparently a better biological background, while Oglura gravitated more toward Komosaki and Toshimura, whose initial interaction with Gagnora continued but without exclusivity. As the other scientists emerged from the lander—often the entire contingent was outside simultaneously—they spoke with and moved freely among the natives.

What was remarkable was that, although the primary language lessons continued to be conducted between Lee and Gus with Meiersdottir and Joe commonly (though not always) participating, the natives' fluency in Standard seemed to progress evenly within the entire group. It appeared that Gus was conducting private sessions with its fellows during the evenings and, with their seemingly eidetic memories, they absorbed its teaching unerringly; nothing else could explain how a word, a phrase, a concept painstakingly clarified by Lee one day would be in common usage among all the natives the following morning.