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When the computers which had been developed to translate one human language into another were tried out on the languages of animals, a new level of interspecies communication began. Now anyone could find out what a dog or cat was trying to tell them. It worked in the other direction, too. At first it was just a scientific curiousity, but then global war came, between the western nations and an eastern confederation of religious fanatics, and every man had to do his part (the Boy Scouts had been designated a fighting force, and drafted en masse). And every woman. And every monkey, dog, cat, bird . . . But even that might not be enough, since the enemy seemed to have a weapon which could kill members of the telepath corps far behind the battle lines. And it might start killing non-telepaths at any time. “. . . an authentically convincing picture of a wartime navy and . . . a think-tank tickler.” — Galaxy First they cracked the codes. The big electronic calculators that handled math codes, production lines, found it simple to decipher the small but racy vocabularies of the animals.Then man had achieved the age-old dream: He could respond when his dog struggled to tell us something, and he could tell that foolish sheep that if he didn't act right he'd be mutton; and, being a man, he could create the wildest, craziest secret weapon for the war that's man's heritage but not that of the new, now-articulate minorities Issued in two states: 500 copies with a numbered leaf signed by the author inserted and a 3,500-copy trade edition. Both editions had the same dustjacket and price. "This first edition is limited to 4,000 copies of which 500 are numbered and autographed."