From Hillary Shaw, Newport, Shropshire, UK
The problem with recognition of alien intelligence raised in your review of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s book Shroud was also tackled in a short sci-fi story from the 1970s, in which some humans get stuck on a very warm and humid planet where every artefact they have rapidly rusts or rots. Aliens arrive, assume they are indigenous animals and take them back to a zoo. Now the humans must convince their captors they too are intelligent. Making artefacts is no good; the bowerbird does that. Then the humans find the alien equivalent of a mouse in their zoo cage, and befriend and cage it. Instantly the aliens set them free with profuse apologies. You see, only intelligent creatures imprison and feed other creatures (8 February, p 28).
