A Larger Universe by James L Gillaspy

think.  Your job is to teach us how to translate these books, so
we can, in turn, teach others, until all the books are translated."
    "Forset told me you could already read and write
English," Tommy said.
    Valin threw up his arms.  "We can, but not this
English!  Every fourth word means nothing, and many of the words we think we
know must mean something else.  When we give the books we think we have
translated to the artisans, they call them gibberish and give them back to us.
    "We had the books for three months before leaving
Earth, and Lord Ull wasn’t happy with our results.”  His face twisted into a
sour smile.  “Working with a lord can be stressful.  The stress can kill
sometimes.  When my friend Berish told me of your transmission, I made him show
me the recording."
    "You’re the reason I'm here?"
    Valin shrugged.  "Well, yes, I suppose so.  You seemed
to know a lot about your computers.  So I suggested to the lords that you could
help us.  Lord Ull ordered the landing that picked you up."
    Tommy walked through the eight artisans who had gathered
outside the door and sat down in the chair at his desk.  Valin's admission of
being instrumental in Tommy's kidnapping first brought a rush of anger, then
memories of home.  "Why should I?  Why should I help my kidnappers?  Will
helping you get me home?  What's in it for me?"  He put his head down on
the desk.
    Valin grabbed his chair and spun it, forcing Tommy to lift
his head.  "You're here.  Everybody works at the tasks they are given.  If
you don't, you will be given no food, no water."
    Valin addressed the others in the room.  "Return to
your tasks.  We will continue without him.  He will either help and decide to
live or not and decide to die."
    Tommy turned his chair toward the desk and cradled his head
in his arms.  He felt like crying for the first time in months.  He was getting
too old to cry, wasn't he?  Hadn't he saved someone's life this morning?  That
should prove something.  What had he ever done to deserve this?  He had never
fit in, even at home.  All he had ever wanted was to be left alone with his
reading and his computer.  Now, he was stuck here, with no way home, no
computer, and nothing worth reading.  What was the point in reading or
translating computer books without a computer to work with?  His eyes were red
when he lifted his head, but he hadn't cried.  So why do they need me?  Why
are they translating all those books?
    He turned to face the horseshoe.  He had to know.  "Why
are you translating those books?  What do the lords expect to get for them in
trade?"
    Valin opened the door with the picture of a cog. 
"Because we need them in order to use these."
    Tommy had visited the company where his dad worked and had
seen the computer room.  That room had been clean and organized with the cables
between the computer boxes hidden under a raised floor.  The room behind the
door seemed a mad version of that, with computers sitting haphazardly about the
room and cables strewn about instead of hidden under a raised floor.  He looked
closer.  None of the cables were connected to anything and the electrical plugs
were lying disconnected on the floor.
    "We have a lot more than this," Valin said. 
"We took these samples from the main storeroom to try and get working. 
That's why we need the books."  He made a rueful face.  "We're
accustomed to instruction books.  That's what we usually translate and from
many languages, most of them not of Earth.  Every machine we take has one, but
your computers have hundreds of instruction books.  We don't know what's
important and what's not.  And the lords want these computers to
function."
    Tommy circled the room, examining the stacked computer
cases.  Some looked new.  Some were scratched and dented.  Tommy bent over to
look at one of these and started laughing.  "This is an IBM AT.  It must
be twenty years old.  A lot older than I am anyway.  Somebody sold you