I decided, when I was given the assignment to straighten things out, that the best way to compete was where we Earthmen are strongest: with mechanical "gadgets." So I had our scientists implant a power source in my body. It made use of short half-life radioactive isotopes for the energy source—not too well shielded, but what the hell, I've already fathered my family—and gave me more power than I could ever need.
In order to be able to use that power, I'd had the scientists set up a closed-cycle system in my body. The combustion products created by the "burning" of food by my body cells, as in all humans, were carbon dioxide and water. These were broken down, in another gadget implanted in my body, into oxygen, carbon and hydrogen.
The oxygen I used directly; another compact machine synthesized carbohydrates to complete the closed-loop cycle. I neither breathed nor ate during the entire time I was on Sunder's Pride, except for the purpose of talking, and that breathing never went past the larynx.
It was lucky I didn't need to breathe, too. Otherwise I'd have drowned in imaginary water while wading in that river the Aliens had created in my mind.
"Also," I explained, "I had a sort of supersonic sonar device set into me, with the transponder in my chest. That's why I had to avoid wearing a protective suit; unless my chest was bare, I squelched the signals. I used this sonar to judge what was going on around me, no matter what I seemed to see."
"Now don't feed us that," said Jones belligerently. "We aren't that dumb. Don't you think we tried using sonar and radar to fool the Aliens? They worked on all our senses. What we saw on a radar or sonar screen matched perfectly the false picture we thought we were seeing with our eyes. It was the same when we used aural reception. What came in through our ears matched what we thought we saw. So now stop kidding around and tell us the truth."
I smiled condescendingly. "I am telling you the absolute truth, Obadiah. You didn't use your head. Of course the sound signals I received from the sonar matched what I thought I saw. I didn't underestimate the Aliens. It's just that sound to my ears wasn't the only read-out method I used. In addition to connecting to the nerves of my ears, which the Aliens expected, the sonar output also connected to the nerves of my tongue. Anything ahead of me tasted sweet, and anything behind me tasted salt. To my left was bitter, to my right acid.
"The Aliens didn't expect me to taste what was to be seen around me, and what they didn't know about, they couldn't counter. No matter what I saw or heard, I just followed my tongue.
"I had a few bad moments one time, when by accident, more or less, the actions of the Aliens almost made me imagine that my tongue was being destroyed, but I managed to work my way out of that by keeping my mouth closed. Just the other day, though, I had some more rough minutes when I found that, along with thinking I had the body of an Alien, I also thought I had no tongue, like them.