Many years later, the photon counting apparatus in the nose of the ship would determine that the star was close enough to actuate deceleration. Again, a force too strong for unfrozen bodies to endure would be applied. Then, after slowing the vessel considerably, the drive would adjust to a one gee deceleration. And the crew would be automatically brought out of their suspended animation. These members would then unthaw the rest of the personnel. And, in the half year left before reaching their destination, the men would carry out whatever preparations were needed.

Hal Yarrow was among the last to go into the suspensor and among the first to come out. He had to study the recordings of the language of the chief nation of Ozagen, Siddo. And, from the first, he faced a difficult task. The expedition that had discovered Ozagen had succeeded in correlating two thousand Siddo words with an equal number of American words. The description of the Siddo syntax was very restricted. And, as Hal found out, obviously mistaken in many cases.

This discovery caused Hal anxiety. His duty was to write a school text and to teach the entire personnel of the Gabriel how to speak Ozagen. Yet, if he used all of the little means at his disposal, he would be instructing his students wrongly. Moreover, even getting this across would be difficult.

For one thing, the organs of speech of the Ozagen natives differed somewhat from Earthmen's; the sounds made by these organs were, therefore, dissimilar. It was true that they could be approximated, but would the Ozagenians understand these approximations?