"Speak again? Speak again? Untie my hands, you maggoty slob, and I'll speak your bloody—" he went on at great length, but the man ignored him.
"Truly, he speaks as with a full mouth. But this is not Bilken talk."
"Nor is he, of clarity and also profundity, a hill man," the girl observed.
"Poot. Pootpoot," the young man stuttered, "the light! He is of Them!"
It took the other two a moment to understand what he meant, but Travis caught on immediately. May the Saints preserve us, he thought, they figured I was from Mert. He chuckled happily to himself. A natural mistake. Only one Earthman on this whole blinking planet, puts up at a good hotel, best in town, these boys put the snatch on me thinking I'm a visiting VIP, loaded, have no idea I'm just poor common trash like the rest of us Earthmen. Haw! His face split in a wide grin. He gathered his words from the Langkit and began to speak in Mert.
"Exactly, friends. With clarity one sees that you have been misled. I am not of Mert. I am from a far world, come here to deal with your Senate in peace. Untie me, then, and let us erase this sad but eraseable mistake with a good handshake all around, and a speedy farewell."
It did not have the effect he desired. The girl stepped back from him, a dark frown on her face, and the large man above him spoke mournfully.
"Where now is the ransom?"
"And the risk," the girl said. "Was not there great risk?"
"Unhappily," the tall man observed. "One risks. One should be repaid. It is in the nature of things that one is repaid."