It had to be admitted that assigning 12-UpJ’ohn a poet as an interpreter on this mission had not been a wholly bad idea, and that if Hildegard MuUer of the Interstellar Understanding Commission had not thought of it, no mere male would have been likely toleast of all Bar-Rob 4-Agberg, Director of Assimilation. The nightmare of finding the whole of the center of the Galaxy organized into one vast federation, much older than Earth’s, had been troubling the State Department for a long time, at first from purely theoretical considerationsall those heart-stars were much older than those in the spiral arms, and besides, where star density in space is so much higher, interstellar travel does not look like quite so insuperable an obstacle as it long had to Earthmen and later from certain practical signs, of which the obliteration of the Assam Dragon and her tenders had been only the most provocative. Getting along with these people on the first contact would be vital, and yet the language barrier might well provoke a tragedy wanted by neither side, as the obliteration of Nagasaki in World War II had been provoked by the mistranslation of a single word. Under such circum-stances, a man with a feeling for strange words in odd relationships might well prove to be useful, or even vital.
Nevertheless, it was with a certain grim enjoyment that 12-Upjohn poured into Robin One a good two-ounce jolt of vodka. Robin coughed convulsively and sat up, blinking.
“Your Excellencyhowwhat’s happened? I thought we were dead. But we’ve got lights again, and gravity.”