“But I heard you say ‘Zbanidge.’ I know Galactic Spanish very well. I speak it well, too, except for the sounds of ‘ezz’ and ‘zeta,’ which all we Vegians must make much too hard—z-z-z-, zo. One hears that nearly all educated Tellurians have the Spanish, and you are educated, of a certainty. You speak it, no?”
“Practically as well as I do English,” Cloud made relieved reply. “You have very little accent, and that little is charming. My name is Neal Cloud. May I ask yours?”
“Neelcloud? I greet you. Mine is Vezzptkn . . . but no, you couldn’t pronounce it. ‘Vezzta,’ it would have to be in your tongue.”
“QX. We have a name very close to that—Vesta.”
“That’s exactly what I said—Vezz-ta.”
“Oh—excuse me, please. You were talking to this lady—Tomingan, she said? What language were you using?”
“Fourth-continent Tomingan, Middle Plateau dialect. Hers. She was an engineer in a big power plant on Manarka, is how she came to learn their sign language. Tomingans don’t go in for linguistics much.”
“And you very evidently do. How many languages do you know, young lady?”
“Only fifty so far—plus their dialects, of course. I’m only half-way to my Master of Languages degree. Fifty more to learn yet, including your cursed Englidge. P-f-zt-k!” Vesta wrinkled her nose, bared her teeth, and emitted a noise very similar to that made by an alley cat upon meeting a strange dog. “I don’t know whether spaceal will count for credit or not, but I’m going to learn it anyway.”
“Nice going, Vesta. Now, why did you appoint yourself a member of this party?”