"The antlers?"
"Horns," said Sel.
"I think they're shed and then regrown," said Po. "Don't these animals look like skin-shedders?"
"No."
"I'll look for a shed skin somewhere."
"You'll have a long look," said Sel.
"Why, because they eat the skins?"
"Because they don't shed."
"How can you be sure?"
"I'm not sure," said Sel. "But this is not a formic import, it's a native species, and we haven't seen any skin shedding from natives."
So went the conversation as they traveled--but they did cover the ground. They took pictures, yes. And now and then, when it was something really new, they stopped and took samples. But always they walked. Sel might be old and need to lean on his walking stick now and then, but he could still keep up a steady pace. Po was likely to move ahead of him more often than not, but it was Po who groaned when Sel said it was time to move on after a brief rest.
"I don't know why you have that stick," said Po.
"To lean on when I rest."
"But you have to carry it the whole time you're walking."
"It's not that heavy."
"It looks heavy."
"It's from the balsa tree--well, the one I call 'balsa,' since the wood is so light."
Po tried it. Only about a pound, though it was thick and gnarled and widened out at the top like a pitcher. "I'd still get tired of carrying it."
"Only because you put more weight in your backpack than I did."
Po didn't bother arguing the point.
"The first human voyagers to Earth's moon and the other planets had an easy time of it," said Po, as they crested a high ridge. "Nothing but empty space between them and their destination. No temptation to stop and explore."
"Like the first sea voyagers. Going from land to land, ignoring the sea because they had no tools that would let them explore to any depth."
"We're the conquistadores," said Po. "Only we killed them all before we ever set foot on land."
"Is that a difference or a similarity?" asked Sel. "Smallpox and other diseases raced ahead of the conquistadores."
"If only we could have talked to them," said Po. "I read about the conquistadores--we Mayans have good reason to try to understand them. Columbus wrote that the natives he found 'had no language,' merely because they didn't understand any of the languages his interpreters knew."
"But the formics had no language at all."
"Or so we think."
"No communication devices in their ships. Nothing to transmit voice or images. Because there was no need of t
hem. Exchange of memory. Direct transfer of the senses. Whatever their mechanism was, it was better than language, but worse, because they had no way to talk to us."
"So who were the mutes?" asked Po. "Us, or them?"