So the voices strived to teach Ertinian to the Terran while he was still in the mindless state, and gradually he came to think in terms of this alien tongue. But he had been taught to think in Terran, and the Terran words came to mind slowly but surely.
And then came the day when Guy Maynard realized that he was Guy Maynard, and that he had been saved, somehow, from the terrors of the Martian inquisition. He saw the alien tongue for what it was and wondered about it.
Where was he?
Why?
The days wore on with Maynard growing stronger mentally. They gave him everything they could, these Ertinians. Scrolls were given to him to read, and the movement of reflections from his eyeballs motivated recording equipment that spoke the word he was scanning into his ear in that pleasant throaty voice. It was lightning-fast training, but it worked, once Guy's mentality went to work as an entity. Maynard learned to read Ertinian printing and lastly the simplified cursory writing.
Then with handwriting at the gate of learning, they placed his hand around a controlled pencil, and the voice spoke as the controlled pencil wrote. They spoke Ertinian to him, not knowing Terran, though his earlier replies were recorded.
And as he strengthened, his replies made sense, and for every Ertinian word impressed upon his mind, he gave them the Terran word. They taught him composition and grammar as he taught them, and whether it was by the written script or the spoken word, the interchange of knowledge was complete.
One day he asked: "Where am I?"
And the doctor replied: "You are on Ertene."
"That I know. But where or what is Ertene?"