Language Difficulties

by R. Richard

During one trip into the desert sand dunes, I find a skeleton down an isolated dry wash. It isn’t the first skeleton I have found in the desert, but I hope that it'll be the last. Strange thing about this skeleton; it isn’t a human skeleton. It's man shaped, if a little small. It has been wind blasted, but not too bad. The head is way too big. The eye sockets are also too big. The skeleton seems complete (as far as I know.) Apparently, the desert critters didn’t mess with it. Desert critters will eat almost anything, because life is hard out in the sand dunes. Apparently, this skeleton was too strange even for the desert critters.
I bury the poor fella; or maybe it was a girl, I don't know. What I don’t bury is the gear that the skeleton has stored in some sort of synthetic, leather like pouch. The pouch has been buried in the sand under the skeleton and it's still sealed. I take the pouch home with me.
When I get the pouch home, I open it up to see what it might contain. I don't know what to expect, it probably being alien and all. However, the pouch contains a computer. It's some sort of laptop computer, but different from anything that I have ever seen before. (I have an old laptop that I sometimes use to set up an engine fuel injection system for a customer, so I'm a bit familiar with computers.)
The original battery in the alien computer is long gone. However, I start by applying a low voltage and work at it for a bit, gradually increasing the voltage. It takes some time, but I find out what voltage level works and then I boot the machine up! There are a number of small metal (I think?) disks in a compartment in the computer. When I insert a disk in a slot in the computer, most of the disks pull up some kind of foreign language screen that I can’t read. One of the disks pulls up some kind of little talking beastie that looks maybe like an alien squirrel, or whatever.
The little beastie will say something, then point to or act out what he has just said. It's like a kindergarten class for alien kids. Maybe some kinda kiddy encyclopedia, who knows?
I figure that, if an alien kid can learn from it, so can I. I mean, me being a high school dropout and all, I won’t have much to unlearn. I think I'll just give it a try for a day or two and see what I can learn.
Well, I do learn, but the learning process takes me all my spare time for several years. I work my way from alien kindergarten through alien high school. Sometimes I think my head will split open from all the information I'm packing inside, but I keep at it.
The first thing I learn to do, from the computer, is to speak, write and read the alien language. I have to do that, since everything in the computer is in the alien language. However, the alien language is really very simple. There are rules. Everything follows every rule. The alien language might have seemed odd to you, but remember; I never finished school. I didn’t have much to unlearn and I make progress pretty rapidly.
Although simple to learn, the alien language is powerful. After I learn alien, I find myself thinking in alien and then translating to English. The alien language is so much more powerful, that I can see the flaws in the design of English and wonder how I ever managed to think in English at all.
I learn simple but useful things from the computer disks. I learn how finance and business work. I learn simple math, engineering and physics. Well, the science stuff is simple for aliens, however, it's way ahead of anything they ever offered me back in school. Hell, it's even way ahead of what I have learned on the job. As a result of my learning, I add some nifty new things to my Desert Invader transmissions.
After I learn to read alien, I find some sort of alien fix it manual on one of the disks. It describes a simple fluid control valve. I do a records search and I find that the alien valve is far ahead of anything the patent office has on file.

ebook

First published November 16, 2013

About the author

I have 48 novels and over 290 short stories currently published.

I'm the co-author, with Sunset Thomas, of Anatomy of An Adult Film.

I spent my early years in the part of Los Angeles known as the South Central. I was known as Whi' Boy, which was sufficient to indentify me in that place. I'm a skilled kung-fu player, using a system that I learned from a Korean I knew only as 'Pak.' It would be easier to tell you the places that Pak wasn't wanted by the police, rather than the places where he was wanted by the police. Pak's kung-fu system, augmented by some bits and pieces from some Chinese practicioners is quick and effective, or I wouldn't be alive today.

My early education was mostly obtained by stealing books from the public library (I always returned them and the Librarian even began to provide me with reading lists.) I did go to high schools, but I never really learned anything there. I eventually graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles, UCLA, with a degree in mathematics.

I work as a Systems Analyst and also make a part of my living as a professional gambler (legal in Nevada.)

I write science fiction, erotica and adventure. My published novels are:
Anatomy of An Adult Film (With Sunset Thomas)
Second Chance: Sky Pirate
Second Chance: God Killer
Second Chance: Scroll Seeker
Second Chance: King of The Islands
Second Chance: King Of Zaya
Second Chance: Duke Of Averon
Second Chance: King Of Golomon
Second Chance: King Of The Sky
Second Chance: Warlord of Ifrequeh
Second Chance: King of Ariby
Second Chance: King of Mesodania
Second Chance: King of Avuls
Second Chance: King of Kemet
A Programmer's Gambit
Bondage House
Corporate Sex Slaves
Friday Night
Involuntary Nude
Layoff
Mind Over Matters
Night Goblin
Pirates of The Keys
Summer of Sex
The Beach Murders
The Last Moon Dance
The Secret Life of Wanda Wilson
Tails of the Pussycat Lounge
To Keep A Job
Toy Whores;
Vix: The Marine
Vix: The Force Commander
Vix: The Senior Force Commander

Short Stories
Alien Frolic
Steel Drum Carnival
The Swappwernauts!
Family Retreat
Family Halloween

Reviews

[R. Richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jeremy is an uneducated young man.
He finds an alien computer, buried under a dead alien, in the desert.
Jeremy then acquires an alien education, from the computer.
The aliens then come for their computer.
Jeremy is in trouble, or maybe the rest of us are in trouble.

[Sandor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It isn't so much what Jeremy says, or even how he says it. It's a matter of what language that he uses.