 Why does the Martian boy speak so many languages?
A Coffin for Jacob By EDWARD W. LUDWIG Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956. With never a moment to rest, the pursuit through space felt like a game of hounds and hares ... or was it follow the leader? The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets. Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. He could not tell if they were Earthmen, Martians or Venusians. The speaker was an eager-eyed Martian boy of about ten. He was like a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees. I speak English tres fine, senor . I have Martian friend, she tres pretty and tres fat. He thought, I don't want your Martian wench. Five dollars or twenty keelis for visit Martian friend. They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed tombstones. Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO 2 -breathing Venusians, the first he'd ever seen. They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape. "Here we are, monsieur ," piped the Martian boy. The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for their spindly bodies. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and forgotten grandeur. Couldn't they have played their music on Mars? He was stout and flabby and about forty and he hated spacemen. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a part of Ben as sight in his eyes. You can defeat him or submit to him or ignore him, and the matter is over and done. It had begun a week ago in Luna City. "Spacemen," he muttered, "are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you see's spacemen." "If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here." "Spacemen in their white monkey suits. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white, crimson-braided uniform of the Odyssey's junior astrogation officer. He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe.
 He must meet humans from many places, and has only picked up bits of language here and there.
 He must meet humans from many places, and has just taken to learning a little of everything.  Martians have a different perception of Earth culture, and it's what he thinks is appropriate.  He must meet humans from many places, and has only picked up bits of language here and there.  He is trying to confuse Ben, and get him to say something.