She could now recognize a few very simple words: yes, no, food, water, their term for her, and some names. “Yes” was a series of three horizontal bars. “No” was three vertical bars. Food was a colored dot or circle inside a green oval. Water was a series of three vertical dots, usually blue or green. Her guide’s name-symbol looked like a connected pair of blue spirals. The alien who had accompanied Juna’s guide in the forest had a name sign resembling a complex triangular looped knot. The sick alien’s name-symbol consisted of three sets of concentric circles, like ripples from a raindrop falling into water. The rest of the aliens’ language was an incomprehensible blur of colored patterns.

“How am I ever going to keep any of this straight?” she wondered aloud to the glowing, bug-infested walls. There was nothing permanent to write on, nothing permanent to write with, and no way to explain what she wanted to the aliens. If only she had her computer. Every Survey-issue computer came with sophisticated linguistic analysis programs hardwired in. But her computer was lost, along with her suit and everything else she had been carrying when she collapsed. It hadn’t been much: a compass, some hard-copy maps, a knife, some rations, a canteen, a standard-issue first aid kit, and, of course, her computer.

Well, she would simply have to do the best she could. The aliens had learned a few of her gestures. Perhaps they could invent a common pidgin that would serve until she got back to base. Then the experts would take over, and she could go back to being the xenobiologist that she was trained to be.