"They talk."
"Not the way we understand it. If they want to say, 'Me,' it's
_tickle-pinch-rub_, even if it sounds like _fwoonk_ to us, when it
doesn't sound like _pwink_ or _tweelt_ or _kroosh_. The tactile
sensations, to a Svant, feel no more different than a massage by
four different hands. Analogous to a word pronounced by four
different voices, to us. They'll have a code for expressing meanings
in tactile sensation, just as we have a code for expressing meanings
in audible sound."
"Except that when a Svant tells another, 'I am happy,' or 'I have a
stomach-ache,' he makes the other one feel that way too," Anna said.
"That would carry an awful lot more conviction. I don't imagine
symptom-swapping is popular among Svants. Karl! You were nearly
right, at that. This isn't telepathy, but it's a lot like it."
"So it is," Dorver, who had been mourning his departed telepathy
theory, said brightly. "And look how it explains their society.
Peaceful, everybody in quick agreement--" He looked at the screen
and gulped. The Lord Mayor and his party had formed one clump, and
the opposition was grouped at the other side of the plaza; they were
screaming in unison at each other.
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