"The same thing should happen, and does happen, with our captors. They think and talk immeasurably _faster_ than we do; and their thoughts are not in arbitrary word or picture symbols, but in attitudes. Watching them, I have come to the conclusion that they don't have a language as we understand it at all; the motions and patterns of the spines, which convey thought from one to another, are as unconscious and natural as expressions on our faces. The difference being that their 'faces' cover most of their bodies, and have a far greater capacity for expression. The result is that they have as easy a time learning to interpret expressions and bodily attitudes of other creatures, as we would have learning a simple verbal tongue. What the psychologists call attitude--or expression, to us--is the key to their whole mental activity. Until we understood that, we had no chance of using their own methods to defeat them, or even of understanding the methods.
"When Albee and the others made that break, you noticed that the pentapods wasted no time in pursuing a man who was even slightly out of reach; they were able to reason with extreme rapidity even in a situation like that, and realized that they couldn't catch him. A man would have tried, at least.
"Like everything else, this high-speed communication has its disadvantages. These creatures could never have invented the telephone, any more than the Vegans did: and they'd have had the same difficulty with gadgets such as the telegraph. I don't know anything about their written language, but it must be ideographic and contain, unless I underestimate their capacity for bringing order out of chaos, a perfectly appalling number of symbols. Who could make up a dot-and-dash code for that? The Orientals of Earth had the same trouble. That would interfere with the 'evolution' of communication devices.
"Their long-distance communication, therefore, must be purely visual transmission. We have seen the television screens in their office downstairs--ten feet square, enough to picture any of the creatures full length. I'm sure that they can't broadcast their vision for two reasons: the Vegans say the ship always returns unexpectedly, and preparations are never made a few hours in advance of its arrival--as they would be if they could broadcast news of their approach. Also, there is no sign anywhere on this building of a beam type second-order projector, or even the loop of a general field broadcaster such as Art was making. The images are transmitted by wire, and only inside this building. That was the reason, Art, that I insisted on your making a visual transmitter. They would have no desire to copy a telephone unit. They have it now; they'll have a full-size visual before that ship leaves; and their communications room is right below here, and should contain emergency accumulators in case the regular power goes.