Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction August 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
LOST
IN
TRANSLATION
By
LARRY M.
HARRIS
In language translation, you may get a literally accurateword-for-word translation ... but miss the meaning entirely. And inspace-type translation ... the effect may be the same!
Illustrated by Schoenherr
he cell had been put together more efficiently than any Korvin hadever been in. But that was only natural, he told himself sadly; theTr'en were an efficient people. All the preliminary reports had agreedon that; their efficiency, as a matter of fact, was what had madeKorvin's arrival a necessity. They were well into the atomic era, andwere on the verge of developing space travel. Before long they'd besettling the other planets of their system, and then the nearer stars.Faster-than-light travel couldn't be far away, for the magnificentlyefficient physical scientists of the Tr'en—and that would mean, inthe ordinary course of events, an invitation to join the Comity ofPlanets.
An invitation, the Comity was sure, which the Tr'en would not accept.
Korvin stretched out on the cell's single bunk, a rigid affair whichwas hardly meant for comfort, and sighed. He'd had three days ofisolation, with nothing to do but explore the resources of his ownmind. He'd tried some of the ancient Rhine experiments, but that wasno good; he still didn't show any particular psi talents. He couldn'tunlock the cell door with his unaided mind; he couldn't even alter theprobability of a single dust-mote's Brownian path through the somewhatsmelly air. Nor could he disappear from his cell and appear, as if bymagic, several miles away near the slightly-damaged hulk of his ship,to the wonder and amazement of his Tr'en captors.
He could do, as a matter of fact, precisely nothing. He wished quietlythat the Tr'en had seen fit to give him a pack of cards, or a book, oreven a folder of tourist pictures. The Wonders of Tr'en, according toall the advance reports, were likely to be pretty boring, but they'dhave been better than nothing.
In any decently-run jail, he told himself with indignation, therewould at least have been other prisoners to talk to. But on Tr'enKorvin was all alone.
True, every night the guards came in and gave him a concentratedlesson in the local language, but Korvin failed to get much pleasureout of that, being unconscious at the time. But now he was equipped todiscuss almost anything from philosophy to plumbing, but there wasnobody to discuss it with. He changed position on the bunk and staredat the walls. The Tr'en were efficient; there weren't even anyimperfections in the smooth surface to distract him.
He wasn't tired and he wasn't hungry; his captors had left him with afull stock of food concentrates.
But he was almightily bored, and about ready to tell anything toanyone, just for the chance at a little conversation.
As he reached this dismal conclusion, the cell door opened. Korvin gotup off the bunk in a hurry and spun around to face his visitor.
The Tr'en was tall, and slightly green.
He looked, as all the Tr'en did, vaguely humanoid—that is, if youdon'