Jonnie slapped the huge hands away and fastened again on the lever. He put it in the left track and let it roll.

“Excuse me,” the machine said, “but I am your instructor if you will forgive such arrogance. I do not have the honor to be a Psychlo. I am but a lowly Chinko." The face in the bottom window bowed twice and put a hand over its eyes.

“I am Joga Stenko, Junior Assistant Language Slave in the Language Division of the Department of Culture and Ethnology, Planet Earth.” Squiggles were running rapidly in the upper window.

“Forgive my presumption, but this is a course of study in reading and speaking the man-languages of

English and Swedish.

“On the left-hand track of the record, I hope you will have no trouble in finding English. On the right-hand track you will find the same text in Swedish. On the center track the same text is in Psychlo, the Noble Language of Conquerors.

“The written equivalent in each case appears in the upper window and suitable pictures appear in the lower window.

“You will pardon my humble pretensions of learnedness. All wisdom abides in the Governors of Psychlo and one of their major companies, the great and mighty Intergalactic Mining Company, on which let there be profit!”

Jonnie centered the lever. He was breathing hard. The language was stilted, oddly pronounced, and many of the words he did not know. But he grasped it.

He looked more closely at the object. He frowned, concentrating heavily. And then he grasped that it was a machine, a not-live thing. That meant that the insect had been not live either.

Jonnie looked at the monster. Why was this thing doing this? What fresh dangers and privations did it have in mind? There was no kindness in those amber eyes. They were like a wolf's eyes seen in firelight.

The monster pointed toward the machine and Jonnie pulled the lever down to the left.

“Excuse me,” it said, “but we will begin with the necessary alphabet. The first letter is A. Look at the upper window.” Jonnie did and saw the marks.

"A...pronounced ay. Its sound is also a as in 'pat,' ay as in ‘pay’ ay as in 'care,' ah as in 'father.' Look at it well, excuse me please, so you can always recognize it. The next letter of the alphabet is B. Look at the window. It always has the sound of bas in bat....”

The monster batted his hand up and opened the primer to the first page. It tapped a talon on A.

Jonnie had already made the connection. Language could be written and read. And this machine was going to teach him how to do it. He centered the lever and pulled it down and there it was evidently spouting an alphabet in Psychlo. The little face in the lower window was showing mouth formations to say the sounds. He swung the lever over to the right and it was saying an alphabet in...Swedish?

The monster stood up, looking the four feet down to Jonnie. It took two dead rats from its pocket and dangled them in front of Jonnie.

What was this? A reward? It made Jonnie feel like a dog being trained. He didn't take them.

The monster made a sort of shrugging motion and said something. Jonnie couldn't understand the words. But when the monster reached over to pick up the machine, he knew what they must have been. Something like,

“Lesson's over for the day.”

Jonnie instantly pushed the arms away from the machine. He moved over defiantly and stood there, blocking the reach. He wasn't sure what would happen, if he'd be batted halfway across the cage. But he stood there.

So did the monster. Head on one side, then the other.

The monster roared. Jonnie did not flinch. The monster roared some more and Jonnie divined, with relief, that it was laughing.

The monster's belt buckle, showing the clouds of smoke in the sky, was a few inches below Jonnie's eyes. It connected with the ancient legend that told of the end of Jonnie's race. The laughter beat at Jonnie's ears, a growling thunder of mockery.

The monster turned around and went out, still laughing as it locked the gate.

There was bitterness and determination on Jonnie's face. He had to know more. Much more. Then he could act.

The machine was still on the table. Jonnie reached for the lever.

The summer heat dried out the mud.

White clouds spotted the skies above the cage.

But Jonnie had no time for them. His whole concentration was on the teaching machine.

He had gotten the huge chair shifted around and by lifting the seat height with folded skins, he could hunch over the table, close facing the old Chinko who, in the picture, fawned in an agony of politeness as he taught.

Mastering the alphabet in English was quite a trick. But mastering it in Psychlo was even worse. Far far easier to trail game by its signs and know, almost to the minute, how long ago it had passed and what it was doing. These signs and symbols were fixed deathless on a screen and the meanings that they gave were unbelievably complex.

In a week, he thought he had it. He had begun to hope. He had even commenced to believe that it was easy. "B is for Bats, Z is for Zoo, H is for Hats and Y is for You.” And by going over the same text in Psychlo, the Bats, Zoos, Hats and Yous became (a little incomprehensibly) Pens, Shovels, Kerbango and Females. But when he finally grasped, under the Chinko's groveling tutelage, that Psychlo words for Hats, Zoos and Bats would start with different letters, he knew he had it.

He at length could lie back and rattle off the alphabet in English. Then he could, with a bit of squinting, sit up and rattle off the Psychlo alphabet in Psychlo. And with all the different nuances of how they sounded.

Jonnie knew he mustn't take too long at this. The diet of raw meat would eventually do him in; he was close to semi-starvation since he could barely bring himself to eat it.

The monster would come and watch him a little while each day. While he was there, Jonnie was silent. He knew he must sound funny while he drilled. And the monster's laughter made the back of his hair stand up. So he would be very quiet under that scrutiny from outside the cage.

It was a mistake. The monster's eyebones behind the breathe-mask plate were coming closer and closer together with a growing frown.

The triumph of the alphabet was short-lived. At the end of it, the monster, one beautiful bright day, yanked open the door of the cage and came roaring in like a storm!

It yelled at Jonnie for minutes on end, the cage bars shaking. Jonnie expected a cuff but he didn't cringe when the monster's paw snaked out.

But it was reaching for the machine, not Jonnie. It yanked the lever down into a second stage that Jonnie had never suspected.

A whole new set of pictures and sounds leaped out!

The old Chinko said, in English, “I am sorry, honored student and forgive my arrogance, but we will now begin the drill of progressive cross-association of objects, symbols and words.”

And there was a new sequence of pictures! The sound for H, the picture of H began to follow one another at a slow interval. Then the Psychlo letter that had an H-like sound began to repeat, in sound and picture. And then they went faster and faster until they were an almost indistinguishable blur!

Jonnie was so astonished he did not realize the monster had left.

Here was a new thing. The lever was so big and resistive he had not realized that all this lurked just beyond another thrust of pressure.

Well, if a little push DOWN would do that, what happened with a little push

UP?

He tried it.

It almost blew his head off.

It took him quite a space of travel of the sun-made bar shadows to get brave enough to try it again.

Same thing!

It almost knocked him off the chair.

Holding back, he stared at the thing suspiciously.