Explore "The Crystal Planetoids" by Stanton A. Coblentz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Hour after hour Gates had been watching his captors. Hour after hour he had been scheming, observing, hoping. With the heightened mental quickness of his paralyzed state, he was searching for a weak spot in the armor of the foe. "Surely," he reflected, "there must be some flaw that makes them vulnerable. " And it was this thought that put him on the track of the wild idea that appeared to offer his only prospect of freedom.
By carefully following everything the invaders said and did, he was able to grasp the meaning of many words and phrases in their language. Even with his remarkable new rapidity of apprehension, he learned no more than a four-year-old might learn of English -- yet this little went far, particularly as the enemy did not suspect that any mere earthling could be so intelligent.