My captor must not have come into contact with the translator-converter. Or else the device was knocked out during the ambush. No matter. I never believed in that method of dealing with language differences, anyway. “When in Rome…” begins an old human expression that’s good advice for any traveler.

I tongued one of my molars, turning on the interpreter nanos in my own ear canal.

“Grimble gramble gnash… so-o-o it’s no-o-o yoosh pretending-g-g,” rumbled the deep, slurred voice, which grew steadily easier to understand. “I ken when a man’s scannin’ me, though ’is gaze be narrow as a Nomort’s charity.”

I opened my eyes fully and sat up on one elbow, wincing just a little from sharp twinges.

“I suppose I’m your prisoner,” I said, subvocalizing first in my own language, then relaxing to let my laryngeal nano-woofers fashion the equivalent in local dialect.

The hirsute fellow replied with what I took to be a shrug, using shoulders the size of hamhocks. When he next opened his mouth, what emerged was a hearty, majestic belch.

I made certain to look impressed.

“Hm. Well said. I take it you are what they call a Lik’em.”

If he winced at my use of the term, it was hidden by the mat of hair covering all but his nose and eyes.

“This week I seek no relief, ’xcept to be what I be, and am what I am. You should see me elsetimes. Handsome bugger, or so says my mirror. An’ what about you? What’s your fate? To eat, or be ate?”

A queer question. It made me glance, against my better wishes, at the stack of bloody cutlets on his plate.

“My name is Dr. Alvin Montessori. And I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Someone recently told me that I looked like a… a Standard.”

My host grunted expressively. “So does a corpambulist, when he’s new an’ not too smelly. So’s a Nomort, in daylight. Heck-o, you should see me most days when there’s no moon in view. Smooth as a baby an’ don’t say maybe!” He guffawed heartily, a friendly sound that would have cheered me, were not beads of saliva running down his yellow tusks and pooling on his lower lip before they spilled on the deeply stained tabletop.

Questions had been swirling in my head ever since we met Earl Dragonlord, about the social class structure on this world. I had a feeling I wasn’t going to like the answers.

“Let’s say I am a Standard. Does that automatically mean I’m slated for somebody’s dinner table?”

My host sniggered, as if amused by my ignorance.

“In some measure that’s up to the Standard hisself.”

“And I suppose Lik’ems and corpsic—”

“Corpambulists,” he corrected. “Though they prefer bein’ called Zoomz. T’is easier to pronounce, especially in their condition.”