Tongues of the Moon

"I brought several thousands of microfilms of my research material. This has been fortunate for future Lunarian research. Without these records, our descendants might not know anything of the great variety of tongues used on Earth, since the majority of their speakers have died. And it is probable that the bomb attack itself, plus the havoc necessarily created by Nature during the next two hundred years, will destroy most of mankind's books and records.

'"Well, that is neither here nor there, so where could it be, then?" He paused to smile at his little joke, then continued, "You have more important things to think about than linguistic scholarship, and most of you care little about such things as the structure of Nahuatl or the beauty of its literature.

"Just as your sons and daughters and their children will care little that their parents' speech is not the one

they are using. All, Russian, English, Chinese, and the other nationalities represented here, will be speaking one tongue. For begin to deviate into dialects. And, after Moonman has moved back to earth and established various colonies there, the dialects will evolve into separate languages. This is inevitable, but it has no bearing on the immediate future.

"What I am trying to point out to you—forgive the ramblings of an old man speaking on the subject dearest to his heart—is that there is no necessity of voting at this time on what language should be universal after peace comes— if it comes. If we come to blows with the Spanish speakers of Mars or their Bantu allies, we may be exterminated or else enslaved. In either case, our languages will no longer be a matter of choice. Our masters will impose their speech upon us. But we may win. Who knows? Only God—I use the term in a consciously mythological or literary sense only, of course —only God knows.

"But what if Martian and Moonman avoid each other, leaving each to his own destiny, thus making sure that we don't a

"Remember, the situation is not the same here as it was on Earth. There, even a secondary tongue had many speakers to hand it on to the children. Breton and Basque took a long time a-dying, though their fate was as certain as that of Atinu or Wend or Yuma. But there are very few people on the Moon. Three hundred by latest count. If the state of war continues for a generation, a good percentage of you, as old men and women, will barely remember the tongue you now speak so trippingly.

"Therefore, I propose that we forget all about the vote. You have already decided the issue. Or, I should say Colonel Scone has done so."

He sat down, and there was a silence.

Scone did not wait for Dahlquist's words to take effect but said immediately, "The motion has been made and seconded that, after the war with the Axis is ended, we adopt one language as the primary speech for the Moon bases. Now, we don't have voting machines, so we will have to have a show of hands. To insure there's no complaint about a possible miscount, each of the bases may select one member for a hand-counting committee."

The committee was quickly chosen, and the three went up to the platform where they could have a better view. Scone then said, "All those voting yea for the motion will signify by raising hands."

Broward looked around and saw that practically the only ones holding up their hands were the native English-speakers of Clavius, a few West Europeans, an Armenian in the Russian delegation, and a Thai in the Chinese group.

Suddenly, it struck him that he had been thinking like those others who had pled for their own tongue. He had taken it for granted that the motion would be carried—because of Scone's strong action in repressing Ying—and had thought that the issue would be only which language would be selected. Now, he saw that Scone, in asking Broward to make the motion, had not told him everything. Scone might be big and impassive, but he was not unintelligent. He had, surely had, arranged with Dahliquist before the meeting to make that speech. And Dahlquist's words had had the intended effect. They had frightened everybody into wanting to put off the issue as long as possible. So, although Dahlquist had told them the truth when he said that it was not necessary to vote, he had also scared them into avoiding the issue. They thought that if they waited until peace came, then they could deal with Scone, refuse to accept one and only one language, save their beloved language for their children and grandchildren.

Only, they had either forgotten, or did not really understand, or else did not want to believe Dahlquist when he said that it was not necessary to vote.

Scone rapped his gavel and said, "Obviously, we won't have to count the nay-sayers. Very well, then. We will wait until peace comes."

Later, the others would get to thinking about what had happened and would see what Broward knew. But there would be nothing to do about it then. And, indeed, if Scone kept them busy enough, they might not have time to meditate and thus arrive at the truth.

He paused, as if reviewing again what he must have gone over many times in his mind. It was then that a light on a squawkbox on the desk before him began flashing. He flipped a switch and leaned over close to it

He spoke a few words, then straightened and said, "'You will have to excuse me for a few minutes. The meeting is adjourned until I return. In the meantime, be thinking about solutions to the next issue."

He stepped down off the platform and strode down the central aisle towards the exit. On reaching the first row, however, he beckoned to Broward. Broward followed him, wondering what could be important enough to call him from the meeting. Or was this move another trick by Scone? It was then that he saw Ingrid Nashdoi on a chair in the back row. He raised his eyebrows and smiled when he was sure that she saw him. She smiled back and shrugged her shoulders.

Outside the conference room, Scone said, "I just got a flash from the radar chief. Come with me to my office."

Broward followed him in. Scone sat down behind his desk and said, "A scoutship, one of our robots, finally reported in. It was one of three. I sent one; and there was a Russian and Chinese ship, also. All three were to find out what the situation on Mars is. All but ours must have been caught; anyway, they're overdue in their reports. The Silverfish was able to take some pretty good pictures."

He made a steeple of his hands and looked straight ahead, through Broward. Broward fidgeted a while, then said, finally, "Is it that bad?"

"Oh? Bad? Bad enough. Our Martian bases were really clobbered, though they didn't go out without a fight. One of the South African bases was destroyed; on the surface, at least And there's evidence that Deimos was hit. So badly, in fact, that the garrison didn't respond to the scout's presence. It made no effort to fire; it didn't even emit any radar or lasers, none that the scout detected."

"So the Martian Axe is a definite threat?"

"More than that The scout also detected an immense fleet moving towards Mars, approximately ten million miles away from it"

"It couldn't be ours," said Broward. "It would have come here first."

"Undoubtedly, it's the Argentinean main fleet, carrying Felipe Howards. Probably, the aristocracy of the Axe Party and their families, too. Do you see what this means?"

Broward shook his head, and Scone continued. "It means that Howards pla