"
"I don't like it, Karl," Loughran said. "If they're telepaths, why
don't they understand us? And if they're telepaths, why do they talk
at all? And you can't convince me that this boodly-oodly-doodle of
theirs isn't talking."
"Well, our neural structure and theirs won't be nearly alike,"
Fayon said. "I know, this analogy between telepathy and radio
is full of holes, but it's good enough for this. Our wave length
can't be picked up with their sets."
"The deuce it can't," Gofredo contradicted. "I've been bothered
about that from the beginning. These people act as though they got
meaning from us. Not the meaning we intend, but some meaning. When
Paul made the gobbledygook speech, they all reacted in the same
way--frightened, and then defensive. The you-me routine simply
bewildered them, as we'd be at a set of semantically lucid but
self-contradictory statements. When Lillian tried to introduce
herself, they were shocked and horrified...."
"It looked to me like actual physical disgust," Anna interpolated.
"When I tried it, they acted like a lot of puppies being petted,
and when Mark tried it, they were simply baffled.
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