Lamont hastened on. "Item two: They sent us instructions as to how to set up our part of the Pump. We couldn't understand it but we could make out the diagrams just sufficiently well to give us the necessary hints. Item Three: They can somehow sense us. At least they can become aware of our leaving tungsten for them to pick up, for instance. They know where it is and can act upon it. We can do nothing comparable. There are other points but this is enough to show the para-men to be clearly more intelligent than we are."
Bronowski said, "I imagine, though, that you are in the minority here. Surely your colleagues don't accept this."
"They don't. But what makes you come to that conclusion?"
"Because you're clearly wrong, it seems to me."
"My facts are correct. And since they are, how can I be wrong?"
"You are merely proving the technology of the para-men is more advanced than ours. What has that to do with intelligence? See here" - Bronowski rose to take off his jacket and then sat down in a half-reclining position, the soft rotundity of his body seeming to relax and crease in great comfort as though physical ease helped him think - "about two and a half centuries ago, the American naval commander Matthew Perry led a flotilla into Tokyo harbor. The Japanese, till then isolated, found themselves faced with a technology considerably beyond their own and decided it was unwise to risk resistance. An entire warlike nation of millions was helpless in the face of a few ships from across the sea. Did that prove that Americans were more intelligent than the Japanese were, or merely that Western culture had taken a different turning? Clearly the latter, for within half a century, the Japanese had successfully imitated Western technology and within another half a century were a major industrial power despite the fact that they were disastrously beaten in one of the wars of the time."
Lamont listened gravely, and said, "We thought that, too, Dr. Bronowski, though I didn't know about the Japanese - I wish I had the time to read history. Yet the analogy is wrong. It's more than technical superiority; it's a matter of difference in degree of intelligence."
"How can you tell, aside from guessing?"
"Because of the mere fact that they sent us directions. They were eager for us to set up our part of the Pump; they had to have us do it. They could not physically cross over; even their thin foils of iron on which their messages were incised (the substance most nearly stable in either world) slowly grew too radioactive to keep in one piece, though, of course, not before we had made permanent copies on our own materials." He paused for breath, feeling himself to be too excited, too eager. He mustn't oversell his case.
Bronowski regarded him curiously. "All right, they sent us messages. What are you trying to deduce from that?"
"That they expected us to understand. Could they be such fools as to send us rather intricate messages, in some cases quite lengthy, if they knew we would not understand? . . . If it hadn't been for their diagrams, we would have ended nowhere. Now if they had expected us to understand, it could only be because they felt that any creatures like ourselves with a technology roughly as advanced as their own (and they must have been able to estimate that somehow - another point in favor of my belief) must also be roughly as intelligent as themselves and would experience little difficulty in working out something from the symbols."
"That might also be just their naivete," said Bronowski, unimpressed.
"You mean they think there is only one language, spoken and written, and that another intelligence in another Universe speaks and writes as they do? Come on!"
Bronowski said, "Even if I were to grant your point, what do you want me to do? I've looked at the para-symbols; I suppose every archaeologist and philologist on Earth has. I don't see what I can do; neither, I'm sure, does anyone else. In over twenty years, no progress has been made."
Lamont said, intensely, "What's true is that in twenty years, there has been no desire for progress. The Pump Authority does not want to solve the symbols."
"Why shouldn't they want to?"
"Because of the annoying possibility that communication with the para-men will show them to be distinctly more intelligent. Because that would show human beings to