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"But we're no closer to understanding them than we were before."
"That's because," said Miro, "we're so stupid."
"Self-vilification won't help us now," said Quara, "even if in your case it happens to be true." "Quara," said Ela sharply.
"It was a joke, dammit!" said Quara. "Can't a girl tease her big brother?"
"Oh, yeah," said Miro dryly. "You're such a tease."
"What did you mean by saying we're stupid?" said Firequencher.
"We'll never decipher their language," said Miro, "because it's not a language. It's a set of biological commands. They don't talk. They don't abstract. They just make molecules that do things to each other. It's as if the human vocabulary consisted of bricks and sandwiches. Throw a brick or give a sandwich, punish or reward. If they have abstract thoughts we're not going to get them through reading these molecules."
"I find it hard to believe that a species with no abstract language could possibly create spaceships like those out there," said Quara scornfully. "And they broadcast these molecules the way we broadcast vids and voices."
"What if they all have organs inside their bodies that directly translate molecular messages into chemicals or physical structures? Then they could--"
"You're missing my point," insisted Quara. "You don't build up a fund of common knowledge by throwing bricks and sharing sandwiches. They need language in order to store information outside their bodies so that they can pass knowledge from person to person, generation after generation. You don't get out into space or make broadcasts using the electromagnetic spectrum on the basis of what one person can be persuaded to do with a brick."
"She's probably right," said Ela.
"So maybe parts of the molecular messages they send are memory sets," said Miro. "Again, not a language-- it stimulates the brain to 'remember' things that the sender experienced but the receiver did not."
"Listen, whether you're right or not," said Firequencher, "we have to keep trying to decode the language."
"If I'm right, we're wasting our time," said Miro. "Exactly," said Firequencher.