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He had no knowledge of medical or chemical terms in Kerothic, but there was a box of glass ampoules bearing instructions to "crush and allow patient to inhale fumes." That sounded right. The stuff smelled like a mixture of spirits of ammonia and butyl mercaptan, but it did the job. Tallis coughed convulsively, turned his head away, coughed again, and opened his eyes.
The general shrugged off the compliment. "Wen it iss a matteh of learrn in orrter to surfife, one learrnss." "You think, then, that your survival has depended on your learning our language?" The general's orange face contrived a wry smile. "Opfiously. Your people fill not learn Kerothic. If I cannot answerr questionss, I am uff no use. Ass lonk ass I am uff use, I will liff. Not?"
At some point in the last few centuries, human civilization had taken the wrong path a path that led only to oblivion. It was at that moment that Colonel Sebastian MacMaine made his decision. The Escape "Are you sure you understand, Tallis?" MacMaine asked in Kerothic. The alien general nodded emphatically. "Perfectly. Your Kerothic is not so bad that I could misunderstand your instructions.
He knew his Kerothic was bad, since it had been learned from the Kerothi spaceman who had been captured with the general, and the man had been badly wounded and had survived only two weeks. But that little bit of basic instruction, plus the work he had done on the books and tapes from the ruined Kerothi ship, had helped him. "Ah?" The general blinked in surprise. Then he smiled.
"Nearly a year of your time." MacMaine smiled. Tallis was as proud of his knowledge of Earth terminology as MacMaine was proud of his mastery of Kerothic. "Lacking three weeks," MacMaine said. "What? Three ... oh, yes. Well. A long time," said Tallis. "The Board of Strategy asked me to tell you," Tallis continued. "After all, my recommendation was partially responsible for the decision."
It was a standard opening for breaking the pause of adjustment, but it presaged good news rather than bad. "I await your word," MacMaine said. Even after all this time, he still felt vaguely proud of his ability to handle the subtle idioms of Kerothic. "I think," Tallis said carefully, "that you may be offered a commission in the Kerothi Space Forces."
"Your accent," he said in Kerothic, "is atrocious, but certainly no worse than mine when I speak your Inklitch. I suppose you intend to question me in Kerothic now, eh? In the hope that I may reveal more in my own tongue?" "Possibly you may," MacMaine said with a grin, "but I learned it for my own information." "For your own what? Oh. I see. Interesting.
After fifteen minutes of high acceleration, her atomic rockets had cut out, and now she moved serenely at constant velocity, looking as dead as a battered tin can. "I don't see anything," Captain Verenski said. "The Kerothic symbols on the side. Palatal unvoiced sibilant, rounded " "I don't read Kerothic, major," said the captain. "I " Then he blinked and said, "Shudos!" "That's it.
"Brace up, Sepastian," he said gently in Kerothic. "You've done a beautiful job. I still can't believe it, but I'll have to admit that if this is an act it's a beautiful one." He gestured toward the small desk in one corner of the room and the big package that was sitting on it. "The food is all there. I'll have to eat sparingly, but I can make it. Now, what's the rest of the plan?"
MacMaine decided he might as well spring his bomb on the Kerothi officer now as later. "I am not so certain but that you might have stretched out your time longer if you had forced us to learn Kerothic, general," he said in Kerothic.