Birthright

Then she shrugged, shook her head, and asked to be returned to the ship. She didn't visit the alien again

that day, but spent her remaining waking hours poring over Pioneer Bowman's report on the planet. It didn't tell her much. The alien civilization was totally nomadic—but so were many sentient races. They had a rigid tribal structure—but so did ants and baboons. Pioneer Bowman could discern no intelligible language—but Pioneers had no training in alien linguistics. True, they had no sign of any technology—but Man himself had existed without technology for well over a million years. In short, there was simply not enough information to form a decision one way or the other, which stood to reason: the aliens constituted only a minuscule section of the report, the bulk of which concerned the minerals to be found on the planet and the conditions under which the miners would have to work. The next morning was spent drawing simple pictures and even simpler mathematical formulae for the alien, with absolutely no success. Then Consuela requested that some samples of raw and processed minerals be brought to her.

She showed and then offered each in turn to the alien, but elicited no response. Borrowing a laser hand weapon, she destroyed both samples. The alien ignored her. She offered it a piece of gold jewelry; it placed it to its lips, grimaced, and flung it back at her. She spent the next two days alternately trying to communicate with the alien and to get it to demonstrate that it could differentiate between raw and refined minerals. If the alien understood or cared, it kept it a secret.

On her fifth day on Beelzebub, Consuela had two crew members construct a miniaturized spaceship and tiny human figurines. She placed them on a board in front of the alien, put tiny pieces of refined material in their hands, and slowly moved them across the board into the ship. The alien looked bored. “Have you any inkling as to whether they are intelligent?” asked Tanayoka at dinner that night. “None whatsoever,” replied Consuela. “Nor do I have an answer to the more important problem of why they attacked the miners when they did.” “More important?” asked Tanayoka.

“Certainly. Even if they are not sentient, I don't wish to see them destroyed. If I can find out what precipitated their attack, perhaps we can avoid provoking them again.” On the sixth day, she had the crew members jerryrig a small smelting plant outside the ship. The alien was taken there, under heavy guard, and allowed to observe. It showed no interest at all. On the seventh day, the alien was escorted to a nearby mountain, one which had not been mined. Consuela, again borrowing a laser weapon, carved a hole three feet above the ground level, exposed some precious minerals in their raw form, and accompanied by the alien and its guards, took the minerals from the site to the ship. There she smelted them as the alien watched, and waited for a reaction. There was none.

After another day of trying to communicate with the alien, Consuela approached Tanayoka. “It's highly unlikely,” she said, “but there is always the possibility, however slight, that you've captured their equivalent of the town idiot. Let's turn it loose and get another one.”