“Any day,” Sanchez reassured him. “It was some job to learn an alien language with just your recordings and some of your educated guesses to go on. We've had a regular mob sweating on it night and day.”
“How is it coming?”
“It turns out they're nothing to worry about. The fleet is close enough now to pick up their surface broadcasting. Believe me, your stupid act has them thoroughly confused. They hold debates over whether you could possibly be intelligent enough to belong in a spaceship.”
“Meanwhile, I'm slowly starving,” said Barnsley.
“Just hang on for a couple of days. Now that we know where they are, they're in for a shock. One of these mornings, they're going to hear voices from all over their skies, demanding to know what kind of savages they are to have kidnapped you—and in their own language!”
Barnsley grinned into his improvised pillow as Sanchez signed off. Things would really work out after all. He was set for an immensely lucrative position; whether as ambassador, trade consultant, or colonial governor depended upon how well the experts bluffed the blubber-heads. Well, it seemed only his due for the risks he had taken.
“Omigosh!” he grunted, sitting up as he pictured the horde of Terran Colonial experts descending upon the planet. “I'll be the only one here that hasn't learned to speak the language!”
END