Blade tried hard to imagine what that must look like and failed completely. He also hoped he wouldn't have to try interspecies sex in order to be accepted among either the Kananites or the Menel. He was a fairly broad-minded and experienced man, but he did have his limits.

«I think we were talking about liquor, not sex,» he said to Riyannah. «So the Menel sometimes get drunk. Then what happens?»

«Sometimes they just fall asleep. The rest of the time-if you ever see a Menel walking and holding himself absolutely straight and rigid, keep out of its way. When they drink they stop swaying.»

«Unlike my people, who start swaying when they've had too much to drink,» said Blade. They were sitting in an outdoor cafe, and he divided the last of a bottle of wine between his cup and Riyannah's.

«Kananites too,» said Riyannah, running her hand up his arm to his shoulder. «Shall we sway off somewhere together and find a nice quiet patch of grass?»

«Sounds like a damned good idea,» said Blade. That was the end of a serious conversation for several hours.

The Menel and the Kananites seemed to have worked out a fairly complete system of sign language, allowing for the physical differences between them. The Menel had no fingers, but they did have two extra arms. Blade saw entire meals ordered and large purchases made in shops without a single word or sound.

Every so often, though, Menel and Kananites wanted to conduct more detailed conversations, for business or pleasure or simple curiosity. Then they needed help.

Every hundred yards or so all over the central cave were clusters of red globes perched on green poles. Each globe had a set of dials and buttons on each side, as well as earplugs and microphones hung on hooks. When a Menel and a Kananite wanted to talk, they found a vacant globe, stepped up to opposite sides, and put on the earplugs and microphones. Then they would settle down for anything from a few minutes to a few hours, taking turns listening and talking.

Some of the globes stood alone. Most were in clusters of four to six, and in the shopping centers there were a few clusters with as many as fifteen or twenty globes. Blade saw one group of thirteen Menel and twelve Kananites take over one of the large clusters and settle down for a long conference. In fact, the conference went on so long that somebody eventually ordered dinner and a swarm of Menel and robot waiters brought out a dozen carts loaded with food and drink.

«That's the first dinner party I've ever seen where all the conversation has to go through a computerized translator,» said Blade. «It might be a good idea to apply back home to fight bores. Somebody gets drunk or tries to monopolize the conversation, you pull the plug, and that's the last of him for the rest of the evening!»

Riyannah laughed. «I've been tempted to do that a few times myself. Some of the Menel take themselves so seriously. The Goran of Scientists are about the worst. But it's considered very bad manners to cut somebody off unless they've actually gone to sleep, turned violet, or started making love.

«The content and structure of the two languages aren't too far apart,» Riyannah went on. «In fact they're amazingly close together, considering how physically different we and the Menel are.»

«I know what you mean,» Blade said. «Our own scientists have sometimes argued that two races from different worlds could only understand each other if they were physically alike. Perhaps that's why I found it so easy to learn Targan.»

«Perhaps,» said Riyannah. They were both silent for a moment, remembering that Blade's similarity to the Targans had already caused some trouble and might cause more.

«In any case, although we think very much alike, we cannot speak alike. We have lungs, tongues, lips, and vocal cords. They have a system of vibrating disks of bone and air tubes that can be shut off or opened. They can't make any of the sounds of our language and we can't make any of the sounds of theirs.»

«That must have caused trouble back when you'd just met the Menel.»

«It did. Fortunately both sides wanted to solve the problem. They called on their best linguists and their biggest computers. They used sign language and pictures to work out a basic vocabulary. Then they put the vocabulary into the computer and designed Speakers to duplicate the sounds of either language. That was most of the work. We've just been adding to the vocabulary and building bigger computers ever since.»

«I see. Kananites and Menel can't talk to each other without the Speakers?»

«No.»

A good deal now fell into place for Blade. Kananites and Menel rode as passengers in each other's ships, but the crews were always all-Kananite or all-Menel. A spaceship crew had to have almost instant communication. Even if the ship's computer could run a Speaker, there would be too much of a delay. In combat it would be worse, and if the computer was damaged so that the crew couldn't talk to each other that would be the end of everything.

For the same reason Kananites and Menel each had their own half of the asteroid and kept pretty much to it. They mixed freely only in the central cave, the recreational area common to both races. The asteroid's computers could handle translating five or six hundred Kanan-Menel conversations but not five or six thousand. Kananites and Menel could get along quite well enough even when living and working apart most of the time.

Living and working, yes-but what about fighting? What was going to happen when Dark Warrior was finished and Loyun Chard sent her out to attack the asteroid? For the first time Menel and Kananite would be fighting literally side by side. What would happen to the base then, particularly if the computers were damaged and the Speakers started going out?

Blade decided he'd better find out what plans were being made to meet the coming Targan attack. Part of his decision was pure self-interest. He might still be on the asteroid when the attack came and he didn't want to be a helpless bystander.

Most of his decision was a desire to help. He was now certain that Riyannah was telling the truth about the Kananites and the Menel. Both races were better than the Targans as they would be under the rule of Loyun Chard. They deserved all the help he could give them.

Now to find out how much that would be.

Blade did his best to be helpful, but promptly ran into several stone walls. To start with, he wasn't even allowed to visit two-thirds of the asteroid. That two-thirds included practically everything he wanted to see, particularly the asteroid's own defense weapons.

Blade was finally able to get hold of a plan of the asteroid and study it closely. He still hadn't been hooked up to one of the Teacher Globes to have a knowledge of the Kananite language implanted directly in his brain. He was beginning to suspect this wasn't accidental. In spite of this he'd picked up enough Kananite to be able to read the plan fairly well.

After a few hours' study he concluded that the asteroid was unarmed except for the weapons aboard the patrol ships based there. The Menel and the Kananites had spared no expense fitting it out with laboratories, observatories, repair shops, and living quarters with all the comforts of home for both races. They hadn't given it a single heavy weapon.

This seemed so ridiculous to Blade that he asked Riyannah what the real situation was. He was hoping to be told that there were asteroid-based weapons the plan didn't show and that he couldn't be told about.

Instead Riyannah nodded. «You are quite right. Except for the patrol ships, the base has no defenses.»

«Why? I can understand why it wasn't armed when the Targans didn't have a space fleet. But now they're building the starship as fast as they can, and she'll be only the first of many. Surely the base ought to have something.»