They spent the whole afternoon there. Ma-ah ran from symbol to symbol, picking up the vocabulary incredibly fast, demanding that Sumpter repeat the words for her correctly, sometimes dancing around him when she conquered a particularly difficult sound.

Even when the sun lowered and the courtyard was buried in deep blue shadows, she wasn’t really ready to quit. Walking back, she stared down at the floor tiles, calling out the words she could remember as she recognized the corresponding images. Once she got down on her hands and knees and fingered one of the drawings, but these weren’t sound-embossed, and she rose, disappointed.

Sumpter didn’t want to rush her, but it was time to show her the city, to introduce her gradually to customs and experiences that would frighten her considerably if she were unprepared. He waited until she tired herself out with chattering—in her own language. He pretended not to know it, to give her the impetus to learn the new vocabulary. In any case, he knew many of her thoughts; telepathically she was easy to read, but she wasn’t ready for that. For that matter, there was something odd in her mental experience occasionally that struck him as incongruous, but he couldn’t place exactly what it was.

Now, for example, her thoughts were quite transparent, with curiosity foremost. She was following him agreeably enough. He led her over to the living-wall just on the other side of the courtyard. Two couches were placed at the far end of the room, enough away from the wall so that pupils would not feel trapped or too frightened by what they saw. Purposely Sumpter left the gate to the court open, offering her an easy escape if she thought she needed one. He pointed. She eyed the couch and sat down. Then he pointed to the living-wall, signaled the proper mental sound for activation, and waited.

The opaque wall shimmered, turned milky, and slowly the images emerged, until an entire city street came into view with its sounds, odors, and activity. Ma-ah stiffened, gasped, and eyed the open door. Sumpter watched her eagerly, wondering that his pupil’s first reactions still excited him. He enlarged the view. There they were, the tiled paths with their magnificent colors, dotted by islands of foliage; the individual dwellings open to sun and air (all erected with sound frequencies, but using native-Earth materials); one of the model cities that were scattered in suitably hidden areas over the planet.

She was completely engrossed, and he gave the mental sound command for three dimensions. Instantly the scene came forward, leapt out, became complete. He looked quickly for her reaction, expecting that this final clarification might alarm her.

Instead the strangest smile lit up her face, oddly uncharacteristic, unlike any of her other expressions that he’d seen so far.