Hoshi changed to Japanese once she was sure he'd repeat what she said. When they had asked another simple question, she had thought as loud as possible to override them, first just repeating the word "Hobbit." Once he said that, she tried to think fast how to tell the story, if it came to that. The drug was apparently effective. He seemed compelled to talk, but to her relief, he seemed to be talking to her. "Yes, a Hobbit," he said.

So she convinced him to repeat after her. The last thing out of place he'd said was, "Okay."

She started the story in English. Short fragments of sentences. Then she did the switch. He struggled a bit with the pronunciation, but that wasn't important. She described Hobbiton and the Shire and Hobbits in general, all in Japanese, and ignored everything the orcs said. She just watched the faces through Malcolm's eyes. If they didn't speak, she tried to keep Malcolm quiet. But he needed to talk, and she realized he wasn't paying any attention to the orcs either.

The orcs stopped bothering to ask questions. Kenoo, the new guy took notes and the others just stood in silent fascination. Except Zhen-ah. He almost seemed to smirk in satisfaction.

When she got to Bilbo's party, she switched to Korean, still keeping the statements short and grammatically incorrect or incomplete. She was going to give Kenoo the biggest puzzle she could manage, linguist to linguist. That's what he was. That's why he was in the room for this experiment. Someone had to learn to understand what Malcolm had said.

"We should stop," Kenu said suddenly.

"We need him to talk," the Major replied pointedly.

"He has done that," Kenu pointed out. "He's still doing that." At that moment, the alien--Samwize Gamjee--stopped his recital. "Now we need to make sense of it."

Baezhu thought he had a point. Samwize had spoken for three hours already. Everything was recorded but none of it made any sense at all. They had to learn to understand it.

"I need to analyze what we've got," Kenu went on. "It could take years to understand even this much."

Dr. Bishtae stood up. "Dr. Kenu is right. We're a long way from getting any strategic information. Maybe we can try again tomorrow with something a bit more basic."

"How basic?" Zhenah asked. He didn't look happy but he sounded a bit resigned.

"Trees, the sun, grass and so on," Bishtae replied. "So we'll have more of a reference, a list of translatable words."

Baezhu stood, too, glad for the opportunity to stretch his legs. He really wished they'd brought some chairs in with them. He felt bad for Samwize--It seemed easier to shorten it.--but knew it would be worse tomorrow. Part of him was excited at the chance to finally communicate but he knew that Samwize had withheld his speech for all these months for a reason. He'd had that one bit of control. And now it was gone.

Once the fuzziness wore off, Malcolm found he could keep his mouth shut again. Whatever they'd given him had worked, much to his delayed chagrin. What did I say, Ho--Frodo?

"Nothing you'll need to worry about," Hoshi answered. "Though they'll probably call you by name now."

Sam? He thought he remembered saying that.

"Samwise Gamgee, actually. You were quite adamant. Beyond that, I stuck to the plan and it worked." She did sound pleased. But Malcolm couldn't remember a plan. "I got to the point where Bilbo left the Ring and set off on his journey."

Oh, that plan. Plenty of material left if they pull that on me again.

"Movie-wise anyway. I don't have the book memorized."

Too bad, Malcolm told her. He was relieved, to say the least. If we have to stay here for the rest of our lives, we could also have done the Silmarillion.

She was silent for a moment. "I don't want to think that far ahead."

Me neither. There's got to be some way out of this. For you, anyway. He really didn't want to lose her but the future was no good for either of them, and she had a baby to think of.

"What do you mean?"

I mean, you should keep on the lookout for an opportunity, a backup plan, per se.

Silence again, then, "What about you?"

I already tried. Before I found out you were still alive. They always managed to keep me from it. I can't get out of this room, and they're always watching and listening in.

"I don't want to leave you there alone, Malcolm," she finally said, "but I'll look--just in case."

"At least it's talking," Kahrae said. "Kenu must be happy now."

Baezhu snorted. "He was, at first. Then after we used pictures of things like the sun, trees, birds, and such, he listened to the first day's recording again. He got so upset, he threw all his papers on the floor."

Kahrae shook his head and set his drink back down. "Why would he be upset? He's got something to work with."

"Too much. He thinks the alien--Samwize--is trying to trick him." Baezhu tried to hide his pride.

"While he was drugged?"

"The language changes. At least Kenu says so. The patterns and syntax, the sounds of vowels just change. So he still can't make anything of it."

Kahrae shook his head again. "The alien didn't want to talk and the drug made him talk. But he still had enough control to trick us by changing languages? How? If he had that control, why didn't he just not speak?

"Dr. Bishtae wondered the same thing."

"How many languages are we talking about?"

Baezhu had to stifle a smile. "Seven, at least. And that was just the first three hours. When he identified the pictures, they all sounded very different, too. One might have been guttural and another was graceful. He even had trouble pronouncing some."

Kahrae was incredulous. "He has a speech impediment?"

Baezhu laughed. "Maybe."

The first snow came three weeks before Turn. Enesh was fascinated. He'd grown up in the southern part of Zheiren and had worked in a desert. He'd never seen snow before. He could only stand to be in it for a few minutes before he'd start stiffening up. It amazed him that the facility wasn't packed up and moved south. Only five percent of the population were Cold Raptors. They were the only ones who could work outside safely since the weather had turned cold.

Well, except for the alien. They'd had an overcoat and foot-coverings made for her from a kesena hide. They wanted to keep her busy to be sure she didn't become despondent and try to harm the fetus she was carrying. Since there were no crops to work with, she was put to work tending live animals near the facility's perimeter and shoveling snow from the walkways. The former she did with a small group of Cold Raptor juvenile females overseen by a full-grown male Cold Raptor. The latter she did in a group of three, overseen by another Cold Raptor. She still slept with the same group of juveniles though they were now housed in a smaller area. The females of her pod were busy preparing nests and were too territorial to be trusted around the alien or even the juveniles.

It wasn't necessary for Enesh to go out at all given that his apartment was so near the lab, and there were underground walkways connecting all the buildings. Besta had explained that they were used for storage of crops, hay, and other farming supplies during the growing season, but opened up in the winter to accommodate the scientific work of the facility. Still, he went out every morning to feel the crisp air and to touch the snow, if only for a few minutes. It was such a novelty for him.

"What do you mean? You can't tell us anything?" Zhenah was furious. They'd gotten the alien to talk three weeks ago. How was it possible the linguist had nothing?

"I mean, he is speaking at least a dozen different languages," Kenu told him.

"A dozen?" Kaife repeated. "How do you know?"

"I'm a linguist," Kenu told him.

Zhenah actually admired the Winged's confidence in himself. Not that he'd let it show. "Which is his first language?"

"Probably the one he spoke when he said his name," Kenu replied, "and what can we tell from his name? He didn't say 'My name is Samwize Gamjee.' He just said the name."

"He said a lot more than that."

Kenu didn't back down. "Less than twenty words, with no reference for what they mean. And they were choppy so I expect they were given in phrases rather than coherent sentences. Then he changed to a much different language, and things got more fluid even though he got more slurred."

Kaife brought out all the photos of the patches from their clothing. "Can we pronounce this then?" He pointed to the one with the symbols 'REED.'

"If the second name is a surname," Kenu answered, "it would be 'Gamjee.' And if that's the case, it may be a language written without vowels. But even then, this symbol is repeated." He pointed to the center of the word. "There's no sound repeated in 'Gamjee.' Or in 'Samwize,' for that matter."

"Just as there are no symbols for the repeated sound in the female's name," Zhenah concluded.

"Yes, but is 'Frodoh' her given name or surname? Do females have one name or two? This," Kenu said, pointing now to the 'SATO' symbols, "may not even be 'Frodoh' at all."

Zhenah made up his mind. "Then the drug is not enough. Get these words, all of them, on cards. We'll make him tell us what they say."

"It's gibberish!" Besta proclaimed. "I know it's written phonetically, but it makes no sense."

"Of course, it doesn't. We don't know his language," Enesh took the latest transcript. The male alien was talking. Enesh hadn't really expected him to give up his silence, but the drugs had made that easier. "Or languages. Kenu believes he's used a dozen or more of them."

"Well, we're not cryptologists," Besta concluded. "We'll need to pass this on to Intelligence. Maybe they'll crack something Kenu hasn't." Besta got up and picked up the telephone. "Get me the Director," he told the operator.

Hoshi was finding it difficult to remember which words were to be in which language. 'Sun' had been in Polish, right? 'Bird,' in French? Or was it Farsi? If she was in the lab, she might be better organized mentally. But she wasn't in the lab. She was in the snow. Fortunately, there hadn't been a lot of it. She really didn't know how much of it to expect or how long the winter would be here. She cleared walkways with a big shovel in between trips to feed the animals on the far side of the complex. The latter made it hard to concentrate on the language.

She had never seen that side of the compound until a few weeks ago. The compound itself was bordered by a tall rock fence with razor coils on top of it. There were pens and coops on the side of a building, with openings that let the animals get out of the weather by entering the building. There were a lot of animals. Most of them were rodent-like creatures that Hoshi recognized from the lunch given to the other females. There were also bird-like animals. And things that might be the equivalent of cows or pigs, though both were covered in long hair, presumably to protect them from the cold.

Her companions on these feeding trips were a pair of toothy, non-winged females. These were the Raptors, as was their guard. He was bigger and didn't seem too interested in his charges. He barked orders to keep them in line and didn't seem at all phased to have an alien in his troop.

From the last coop, she could see a field with a pond or creek. Beyond that, she could make out tall, bare trees and the border wall. More trees seemed to be on the other side of the wall, but she couldn't be sure from that distance. She thought, that those trees might just be her best chance of escape without interference from the scientists. The winter made it possible thanks to her change of duties.

Each time in the last week that she'd made the trek out there, she tried to work out a plan. If she could get away from the others, and the guard, maybe she could run across that field and dip herself in the water. Hypothermia would be easier if she was wet. Then she could try to use the trees to get over the wall and hope to elude the guards long enough to freeze to death.

Not that she was ready for that. She didn't really want to die. She wanted to live. Just somewhere else. And with Malcolm. She couldn't just leave him. She kept the plan in reserve and tweaked it each morning and night as she walked back from the feeding trips. She needed to work out her best chances of getting away and of accomplishing what she'd need to. It would need to be colder, probably. Would more snow be better or none at all? Which tree would give her the best chance of getting over the wall? How long did it take to freeze to death? Did it hurt?