l prison section where the alien officer was being held. The guards
saluted nonchalantly as he went in. The routine questioning sessions
were nothing new to them.

MacMaine turned the lock on the prisoner's cell door and went in. Then
he came to attention and saluted the Kerothi general. He was probably
the only officer in the place who did that, he knew; the others treated
the alien general as though he were a criminal. Worse, they treated him
as though he were a petty thief or a common pickpocket--criminal, yes,
but of a definitely inferior type.
_
General Tallis, as always, stood and returned the salute. "Cut mawnik,
Cunnel MacMaine," he said. The Kerothi language lacked many of the
voiced consonants of English and Russian, and, as a result, Tallis' use
of _B__, _D__, _G__, _J__, _V__, and _Z__ made them come out as _P__,
_T__, _K__, _CH__, _F__, and _S__. The English _R__, as it is
pronounced in _run__ or _rat__, eluded him entirely, and he pronounced
it only when he could give it the guttural pronunciation of the German
_R__. The terminal _NG__ always came out as _NK__. The nasal _M__ and
_N_ were a little more drawn out than in English, but they were easily
understandable.

* * * * *

"Good morning, General Tallis," MacMaine said. "Sit down. How do you
feel this morning?"

The general sat again on the hard bunk that, aside from the single
chair, was the only furniture in the small cell. "Ass well ass coot pe
expectet. I ket ferry little exercisse. I ... how iss it set? ... I
pecome soft? Soft? Iss correct?"

"Correct. You've learned our language very well for so short a time."

The general shrugged off the compliment. "Wen it iss a matteh of learrn
in orrter to surfife, one learrnss."

"You think, then, that your survival has depended on your learning our
language?"

The general's orange face contrived a wry smile. "Opfiously. Your
people fill not learn Kerothic. If I cannot answerr questionss, I am
uff no use. Ass lonk ass I am uff use, I will liff. Not?"

MacMaine decided he might as well spring his bomb on the Kerothi
officer now as later. "I am not so certain but that you might have
stretched out your time longer if you had forced us to learn Kerothic,
general," he said in Kerothic. He knew his Kerothic was bad, since it
had been learned from the Kerothi spaceman who had been captured with
the general, and the man had been badly wounded and had survived only