But they still didn't know if Hfathon was saying 'fork', 'a fork', 'the fork', or 'this is a fork'. Bronski asked Sha'ul to explain in Greek. He expected some difficulty because, as far as he knew, Koine Greek had no word for fork. That instrument had not been invented in the first century AD.
Ya'aqob protested that Bronski should be addressing his question to him, not to Sha'ul. He, Ya'aqob, was the chief human interrogator and was therefore the proper one to carry on this lesson.
Bronski smiled and said in English, 'Captain, whatever else the Martians are, they're jealous of their authority. They've got the same old Homo sapiens pecking order.'
'You can take the Terrestrial from Earth, but you can't take Earth away from the Terrestrial,' Orme said.
Ya'aqob asked Bronski what he had said. Bronski replied that he was merely translating for Orme. Ya'aqob said that he didn't think so. They were smiling, but there was nothing funny in anything they had said.
Bronski shrugged.
Hfathon spoke somewhat angrily in Greek. If these interruptions kept on, the lessons would be far behind schedule. From now on, if Bronski wanted to know the Greek equivalent, he could ask him about it. He was as fluent in that language as anybody else in the group.
Ya'aqob said, 'In that case, the rest of us might as well return to the university. However, this is a committee, not a military unit. Though you are the chairman, anybody has a right to speak up if it so pleases him.'
'Or her,' Zhkeesh, the female, said.
Ya'aqob smirked.
Bronski translated the exchange to Orme.
'They're academics, no doubt about that.'
'Well, what is it, a "fork", or what?’ Orme said impatiently.
'Shneshdit just means "fork". It's a loan word in Greek, but it's pronounced slightly differently.'
'Don't tell me how it's pronounced in Greek,' Orme said. 'I just want to learn Krsh. For the time being, anyway.'
The lesson proceeded rather rapidly after that, though Bronski twice tried to ask when he and Orme would be released from their quarters. Hfathon said they would learn that in due time.
Both of the Marsnauts had excellent memories. In three hours they had mastered the names of twenty artefacts and also learned the names of parts of the human and Krsh bodies.
They had also picked up some short phrases. Of the four forks on the table, the fork nearest to them was shnesh-am-dit. A fork a little more distant was shnesh-aim-dit. A third fork even further away was shnesh-tu-dit. Two forks close to them was shnesh-am-gr-dit. And so on.
Orme had difficulty pronouncing '-gr-' without an intrusive vowel between the g and the r, especially since the r was pronounced with the tip of the tongue near the palate. He failed utterly to master two consonants produced deep in the throat that sounded like ripping sailcloth to him.
Bronski said, 'They have near-equivalents in Arabic. You'll get them eventually.'
'If I don't die of a sore throat first. Anyway, I can't tell the difference between them.'
'Your ear will become tuned.'
The session ended, leaving Orme sweating and tired. His only consolation was that Bronski also looked peaked.
Their tutors left them before supper, but an hour after the two had eaten they reappeared. Orme shut off the TV, which was showing a play of some kind.
It looked to him as if it were the Martian version of a soap opera, but he couldn't be sure. However, during its course, he had recognised four phrases he'd learned earlier. But his attempts to reproduce them aloud had failed.
'Tell them I've had enough Berlitz lessons,' he said.
But they were in for another kind of gruelling session. This was conducted entirely in Greek except when Bronski interpreted for Orme. One question after another was fired at them about the history of Earth since about 50 AD. Occasionally Bronski's Greek failed him; he didn't know a word or a phrase. So many artefacts and social and psychological concepts had come into being since that time. Sometimes he would be able to explain by drawing a picture or a diagram on the electronic screen which Sha'ul had brought in.
Frequently, Hfathon would interrupt him. 'Let's drop that particular matter until later. It's too complicated and will only make us confused. Just give us the main movements in Earth's history.'
But when Bronski tried to do this, he had to go into details.
'So far you've taken us up to what you call the eleventh century AD. That corresponds, if I understand you correctly, to 4961 by the Hebrew reckoning. We'll try to get to the present by the end of tomorrow's session. Then we'll have to backtrack, start from the beginning again, so you can enlighten us on those things which require detail to be comprehended perfectly.'
After hearing the Frenchman's translation of this, Orme said, 'Tell him we're dying of curiosity about them. Ask him if we can't be told how and why they came to Mars. If not, why not?'
Hfathon said, 'We have our reasons for this method of procedure. You must bear with us. After all, you came here uninvited, so you can't expect to be treated as honoured guests. Still, we're enjoined to love the alien in our land as ourselves, because we were once aliens in Egypt. But to relieve your minds, you may know that we have no sinister intentions. Everything that is being done is done for the best. Shalom, my guests.'
Bronski said, 'But I've told you that our shipmates cannot stay in orbit for much more than three weeks. Then they'll have to return to Earth. This imprisonment is insufferable from our viewpoint, anyway. Can't...?'
He stopped. The six had walked out, and the transparent wall was sliding down behind them.
Orme poured out the last of the wine in a bottle which Sha'ul had given him. 'Damn it! I'm so frustrated I could bite nails! Or a Martian! What do you think they're up to, Avram?'
Bronski shrugged his shoulders. His lean aquiline face was set with doubt. 'I don't know. There's nothing we can do except go along with them at their own pace.'
'I'll tell you one thing. I think that all these questions about history are a bunch of bull. They pretend to know nothing of us since 50 AD. But they haven't been keeping their heads in their shells. At least, they shouldn't have. Look at how technologically advanced they are. What's kept them from building another spaceship and going to Earth? Or, if for some reason they haven't done that, though I don't know why they wouldn't, they could easily have been receiving radio waves all these years. It's only logical that they should. So wouldn't they know a lot more about us than they've been pretending to know?'
'It does seem likely,’ Bronski said. 'But maybe they have a reason for not listening in.'
'Would Earth people under similar circumstances deliberately keep themselves in ignorance?'
'I don't know. After all, half of the Martians are descendants of Earth people.'
Orme was silent for a while as he walked back and forth, swinging his arms. He liked and needed hard exercise. Being imprisoned made him feel like a caged tiger. Pushups and kneebends were not adequate. He required exercise that was also fun: tennis, basketball, swimming. The ascetic Bronski, however, seemed quite able to sit or lie down for days without being bored as long as he had something to study.
'The way I get it,' Orme said suddenly, 'is that they're so interested in what happened after 50 AD, if they're not lying, that is, because they know what happened up to that time. Which means that they left Earth then and haven't been back. Or maybe they have been back to observe from a ship, but they don't know the meaning or the details of what they saw. They can get those only from us. So, to fool us into not knowing they do have a general knowledge of events, they get us to tell them the broad story. Then they can lead us into telling the details.'