He left without waiting for the man to acknowledge his order. Hidaka was becoming annoyed with his own inability to unravel the puzzle of this ship. He had been chosen to lead the boarding party because of his near-faultless grasp of English, but the language displayed on all the signage throughout the vessel meant nothing to him. Once or twice he had found a small plaque written in what seemed to be German, but that only served to deepen the mystery. He proceeded to the wardroom in very poor humor.

The men in there sprang to attention when he arrived. Three of the insensate crew lay on the floor.

“Well?” he asked immediately. “Anything to report?”

An ensign snapped to attention and indicated a pile of books and papers sitting on a table.

“We were just coming to get you, Commander. We have located these, we think some are written in English . . .”

He cast a wary eye over a tall stack of magazines written in what he assumed was the baboons’ language. Most were editions of something called Detik. A lesser number were of another journal called Tempo. He ignored them in favor of the English-language publications.

That was a thin collection, but it was nonetheless astounding. The first item was a pornographic magazine! Hidaka examined the masthead. HUSTLER, it read. He wasn’t sure what that meant. The smaller titles, perhaps representing the articles, were no clearer.

WE TESTFUCK THE LATEST IN V3D PUSSY.

INSIDE THE RISING JIHAD.

and

GET BIG AND BEASTLY WITH THE LATEST SYNTH-SIMIAN DNA.

Meaningless. Absolutely meaningless. And . . .

“Shit!”

Hidaka wasn’t even aware he’d sworn in English, so great was his shock at the image that met him when he flipped open the magazine.

“So the rumors are true,” he mused in Japanese, when he’d recovered from the surprise. “They are blond all over.”

The men sniggered, and he might have spent a few minutes confirming the theory if the ensign hadn’t gently handed him a small device.

“And there is this, Commander. It glows like a lantern.”

A strangely lit screen displayed the cover of Tempo. Hidaka checked it against the pile of paper magazines. Yes, he was certain they were same thing. What an oddity. A magazine in an electric box!

It was apparently written in the same damnable tongue as everything else on this ship, but there in the left-hand margin of the screen was a small British flag and underneath it, the word

English

Progress at last! Hidaka thought.