The Cage - sf68 (A. Bertram Chandler)

The crew of the spaceship Lode Star suffer a catastrophic engine failure, forcing them to crash-land on a remote, unvisited planet.

Sometime later, an alien species appears and “rescues” them. To the humans’ shock, they're not taken to a shelter but placed in a glass-walled enclosure—a zoo-like cage—seemingly for observation.

The humans desperately attempt to engage with their captors. They write signs, demonstrate tools, and try reasoning—but the aliens misinterpret everything, treating them as simple creatures rather than sentient being.