Babel-17

by Samuel R. Delany

  "Do you understand it?"

  "I understand some of it better than I did this afternoon. There's something about the language itself that scares me even more than General Forester."

  Puzzlement fixed itself to T'mwarba's face. "About the language itself?"

  She nodded.

  "What?"

  The muscle in her cheek jumped again. "For one thing, I think I know where the next accident is going to be."

  "Accident?"

  "Yes. The next sabotage that the Invaders are planning, if it is the Invaders, which I' m not sure of. But the language itself—it's . . . it's strange."

  "How?"

  "Small," she said. "Tight. Close together—That doesn't mean anything to you, does it? In a language, I mean?"

  "Compactness?" asked Dr. T'mwarba. "I would think it's a good quality in a spoken tongue."

  "Yes," and the sibilant became a breath. "Mocky, I am scared!"

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm going to try to do something, and I don't know if I can or not."

  "If it's worth trying, you should be a little afraid. What is it?"

  "I decided it back in the bar, and I figured out I'd better talk to somebody first. That usually means you.''

  "Give."

  "I'm going to solve this whole Babel-17 business myself."

  T'mwarba leaned his head to the right.

  "Because I have to find out who speaks this language, where it comes from, and what it's trying to say."

  His head went left.

  "Why? Well, most textbooks say language is a mechanism for expressing thought, Mocky. But language is thought. Thought is information given form. The form is language. The form of this language is . . . amazing."

  "What amazes you?"

  "Mocky, when you learn another tongue, you learn the way another people see the world, the universe."

  He nodded.

  "And as I see into this language, I begin to see . . . too much."

  "It sounds very poetical."

  She laughed. "You always say that to me to bring me back to earth."

  "Which I don't have to do too often. Good poets tend to be practical and abhor mysticism."

  "Something about trying to hit reality; you figure it out," she said. "Only, as poetry tries to touch something real, maybe this is poetical."

  "All right. I still don't understand. But how do you propose to solve the Babel-17 mystery?"

  "You really want to know?" Her hands fell to her knees. "I'm going to get a spaceship, get a crew together, and get to the scene of the next accident."

  "That's right, you do have Interstellar Captain's papers. Can you afford it?"

  "The government's going to subsidize it."

  "Oh, fine- But why?"

  "I'm familiar with a half-dozen languages of the Invaders. Babel-17 isn't one of them. It isn't a language of the Alliance. I want to find out who speaks this language—because I want to find out who, or what, in the Universe thinks that way. Do you think I can, Mocky?"

  "Have another cup of coffee." He reached back over his shoulder and sailed the carafe across to her again. "That's a good question. There's a lot to consider; You're not the most stable person in the world - Managing a spaceship crew takes a special sort of psychology which—you have. Your papers, if I remember, were the result of that odd—eh, marriage of yours, a couple of years ago. But you only used an automatic crew. For a trip this length, won't you be managing Transport people?"

  She nodded.

  "Most of my dealings have been with Customs persons. You're more or less Customs."

  "Both parents were Transport. I was Transport up till the time of the Embargo."

  "That's true. Suppose I say, 'yes, I think you can'?"

  "I'd say, 'thanks,' and leave tomorrow."

  "Suppose I said I'd like a week to check over your psyche-indices with a microscope, while you took a vacation at my place, taught no classes, gave no public readings, avoided cocktail parties?"

  "I'd say, 'thanks.' And leave tomorrow."

  He grinned. "Then why are you bothering me?"

  "Because—" She shrugged. "Because tomorrow I'm going to be busy as the devil. . . and I won't have time to say good-bye."

  “Oh.'' The wryness of his grin relaxed into a smile. And he thought about the myna bird again.

  Rydra, thin, thirteen, and gawky, had broken through the triple doors of the conservatory with the new thing called laughter she had just discovered how to make in her mouth. And he was parental proud that the near corpse, who had been given into his charge six

  months ago, was now a girl again, with boy-cropped hair and sulks and tantrums and questions and caresses for the two guinea pigs she had named Lump and Lumpkin. The air-conditioning pressed back the shrubbery to the glass wall and sun struck through the transparent roof. She had said, "What's that, Mocky?"

  And he, smiling at her, sun-spotted in white shorts and superfluous halter, said, "It's a myna bird. It'll talk to you. Say hello."

  The black eye was dead as a raisin with a pinhead of live light jammed in the comer. The feathers glistened and the needle beak lazed over a thick tongue. She cocked her head as the bird head cocked, and whispered, "Hello?"

  Dr. T'mwarba had trained it for two weeks with fresh-dug earthworms to surprise her. The bird looked over its left shoulder and droned, “Hello, Rydra. It’s a fine day out and I'm happy."

  Screaming.

  As unexpected as that.

  He'd thought she'd started to laugh. But her face was contorted, she began to beat at something with her arms, stagger backwards, fall. The scream rasped in near collapsed lungs, choked, rasped again. He ran to gather up her flailing, hysterical figure, while the drone of the bird's voice undercut her wailing: “It's a fine day out and I'm happy."

  He'd seen acute anxiety attacks before. But this shook him. When she could talk about it later, she simply said—tensely, with white lips, "It frightened me!"

  Which would have been it, had the damn bird not gotten loose three days later and flown up into the antenna net he and Rydra had put up together for her amateur radio stasis-crafter with which she-could listen to the hyperstatic communications of the transport ships in this arm of the galaxy. A wing and a leg got caught, and it began to beat against one of the hot lines so that you could see the sparks even in the sunlight. "We've got to get him out of there!" Rydra had cried. Her fingertips were over her mouth, but as she looked at the bird, he could see the color draining from under her tan. "I'll take care of it, honey," he said. "You just forget about him."

  "If he hits that wire a couple of more times he'll be dead.

  But he had already started inside for the ladder. When he came out, he stopped. She had shinned four-fifths up the guy wire on the leaning catalpa tree that shaded the corner of the house. Fifteen seconds later he was watching her reach out, draw back, reach out again toward the wild feathers. He knew damn well she wasn't afraid of the hot line, either; she'd strung it up herself. Sparks again. So she made up her mind and grabbed. A minute later she was coming across the yard, holding the rumpled bird at arm's length. Her face looked as if it had been blown across with powdered lime.

  "Take it, Mocky," she said, with no voice behind her trembling lips, "before it says something and I start hollering again."

  So now, thirteen years later, something else was speaking to her, and she said she was scared. He knew how scared she could be; he also knew with what bravery she could face down her fears.

  He said, "Good-bye. I'm glad you woke me up. I'd be mad as a damp rooster if you hadn't come."

  "The thanks is yours, Mocky," she said. "I'm still frightened."

  III

  Danil D. Appleby who seldom thought of himself by his name—he was a Customs Officer—stared at the order through wire-framed glasses and rubbed his hand across his crewcut red hair, "Well, it says you can, if you want to."

  "And—?"

  "And it is signed by General Forester."

&n
bsp; “Then I expect you to cooperate.”

  "But I have to approve—"

  "Then you'll come along and approve on the spot. I don't have time to send the reports in and wait for processing."

  "But there's no way—"

  "Yes, there is. Come with me."

  "But Miss Wong, I don't walk around Transport town at night."

  "I enjoy it. Scared?"

  "Not exactly. But—"

  “I have to get a ship and a crew by the morning. And it's General Forester's signature. All right?"

  "I suppose so."

  "Then come on. I have to get my crew approved."

  Insistent and protesting respectively, Rydra and the officer left the bronze and glass building.

  They waited for the monorail nearly six minutes. When they came down, the streets were smaller, and a continuous whine of transport ships fell across the sky.

  Warehouses and repair and supply shops, sandwiched rickety apartments and rooming houses. A larger street cut past, rumbling with traffic, busy loaders, stellar-men. They passed neon entertainments, restaurants of many worlds, bars and brothels. In the crush the Customs Officer pulled his shoulders in, walked more quickly to keep up with Rydra's long-legged stride.

  "Where do you intend to find— ?"

  "My pilot? That's who I want to pick up first." She stopped on the comer, shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather pants, and looked around.

  "Do you have someone in mind?"

  "I'm thinking of several people. This way." They turned on a narrower street, more cluttered, more brightly lit.

  "Where are we going? Do you know this section?"

  But she laughed, slipped her arm through his, and, like a dancer leading without pressure, she turned him toward an iron stairway.

  "In here?"

  "Have you ever been to this place before?" she asked with an innocent eagerness that made him feel for a moment he was escorting her.

  He shook his head.

  Up from the basement cafe black burst—a man, ebony-skinned, with red and green jewels set into his chest, face, arms and thighs. Moist membranes, also Jeweled, fell from his arms, billowing on slender tines as he hurried up the steps.

  Rydra caught his shoulder. "Hey, Lome!"

  "Captain Wong!" The voice was high, the white teeth needle-filed. He whirled to her with extending sails. Pointed ears shifted forward. "What you here for?"

  "Lome, Brass is wrestling tonight?"

  "You want see him? Aye, Skipper, with the Silver Dragon, and it's an even match. Hey, I look for you on Deneb. I buy your book too. Can't read much, but I buy. And I no find you. Where you been a' six months?"

  "Earthside, teaching at the University. "But I'm going out again."

  "You ask Brass for pilot? You heading out Specelli way?"

  'That's right."

  Lome dropped his black arm around her shoulder and the sail cloaked her, shimmering. “You go out Caesar, you call Lome for pilot, ever you do. Know Caesar—" He screwed his face and shook his head. "Nobody know it better."

  "When I do, I will. But now it's Specelli."

  "Then you do good with Brass. Work with him before?''

  "We got drunk together when we were both quarantined for a week on one of the Cygnet planetoids. He seemed to know what he was talking about."

  "Talk, talk, talk," Lome derided. "Yeah, I remember you. Captain who talk. You go watch that son of a dog wrestle; then you know what sort of pilot he make."

  'That's what I came to do," nodded Rydra. She turned to the Customs Officer, who shrank against the iron banister. God, he thought, she's going to introduce me. But she cocked her head with a half smile and turned back. "I'll see you again, Lome, when I get home."

  "Yeah, yeah, you say that and say that twice. But I no in six months see you." He laughed. "But I like you, lady Captain. Take me to Caesar some day, I show you."

  "When I go, you go, Lome."

  A needle leer. "Go, go, you say. I got go now. Bye-bye, lady Captain"—he bowed and touched his head in salute—"Captain Wong." And was gone.

  "You shouldn't be afraid of him," Rydra told the Officer.

  "But he's—" During his search for a word, he wondered. How did she know? "Where in five hells did he come from?"

  "He's an Earthman. Though I believe he was born en route from Arcturus to one of the Centauris. His mother was a Slug. I think, if he wasn't lying about that too. Lome tells tall tales.”

  "You mean all that getup is cosmeti surgery?"

  "Um-hm." Rydra started down the stairs.

  "But why the devil do they do that to themselves? They're all so weird- That's why decent people won't have anything to do with them."

  "Sailors used to get tattoos. Besides, Lome has nothing else to do. I doubt he's had a pilot's job in forty years."

  "He's not a good pilot? What was all that about the Caesar nebula?"

  "I'm sure he knows it. But he's at least a hundred and twenty years old. After eighty, your reflexes start to go, and that's the end of a pilot's career. He just shuttle-bums from port city to port city, knows every- thing that happens to everybody, stays good for gossip and advice."

  They entered the cafe on a ramp that swerved above me heads of the customers drinking at bar and table thirty feet below. Above and to the side of them, a fifty-foot sphere hovered like smoke, under spotlights. Rydra looked from the globe to the Customs Officer. "They haven't started the games yet."

  "Is this where they hold those fights?"

  "That's right."

  "But that's supposed to be illegal!"

  "Never passed the bill. After they debated, it got shelved."

  "Oh."

  As they descended among the jovial transport workers, the Officer blinked. Most were ordinary men and women, but the results of cosmetic surgery were numerous enough to keep his eyes leaping. "I've never been in a place like this before!" he whispered. Amphibians or reptilian creatures argued and laughed with griffins and metallic-skinned sphinxes.

  "Leave your clothing here?" smiled the check girl. Her naked skin was candy green, her immense coil piled like pink cotton. Her breasts, navel, and lips flashed.

  “I don't believe so," the Customs Officer said quickly.

  "At least take your shoes and shirt off," Rydra said, slipping off her blouse. "People will think you're strange." She bent, rose and handed her sandals over the counter. She had begun to unbuckle her waist cinch when she caught his desperate look, smiled, and fastened the buckle again.

  Carefully he removed jacket, vest, shirt, and undershirt. He was about to untie his shoes when someone grabbed his arm. "Hey, Customs!"

  He stood up before a huge, naked man with a frown on his pocked face like a burst in rotten rind. His only ornaments were mechanical beetle lights that swarmed in patterns over his chest, shoulders, legs and arms.

  "Eh, pardon me?"

  "What you doing here. Customs?"

  "Sir, I am not bothering you."

  "And I'm not bothering you. Have a drink, Customs. I'm being friendly."

  "Thank you very much, but I'd rather—"

  "I'm being friendly. You're not. If you're not gonna be friendly. Customs, I'm not gonna be friendly either."

  "Well, I'm with some—" He looked helplessly at Rydra.

  “Come on. Then you both have a drink. On me. Real friendly, damn it." His other hand fell toward Rydra's shoulder, but she caught his wrist. The fingers opened from the many-scaled stellarimeter grafted onto his palm. "Navigator?"

  He nodded, and she let the hand go, which landed.

  "Why are you so 'friendly' tonight?"

  The intoxicated man shook his head. His hair was knotted in a stubby black braid over his left ear. "I'm just friendly with Customs here. I like you."

  "Thanks. Buy us that drink and I'll buy you one back."

  As he nodded heavily, his green eyes narrowed. He reached between her breasts and fingered up the gold disk that hung from the chain around her neck. "Cap
tain Wong?"

  She nodded.

  "Better not mess with you, then." He laughed. "Come on. Captain, and I'll buy you and Customs here something to make you happy.'' They pushed their way to the bar.

  What was green and came in small glasses at the more respectable establishments here was served in mugs.

  "Who you betting on in the Dragon-Brass skirmish, and if you say the Dragon, I'll throw this in your face. Joking, of course. Captain."

  "I'm not betting," Rydra said. "I'm hiring. You know Brass?"

  "Was a navigator on his last trip. Got in a week ago."

  "You're friendly for the same reason he's wrestling?"

  "You might say that."

  The Customs Officer scratched his collarbone and looked puzzled.

  "Last trip Brass made went bust," Rydra explained to him. "The crew is out of work. Brass is on exhibit tonight." She turned again to the Navigator. "Will there be many captains bidding for him?"

  He put his tongue just under his upper lip, squinted one eye and dropped his head. He shrugged.

  "I'm the only one you've run into?"

  A nod, a large swallow of liquor.

  "What's your name?"

  "Calli, Navigator-Two."

  "Where are your One and Three?"

  "Three's over there somewhere getting drunk. One was a sweet girl named Cathy O'Higgins - She's dead." He finished the drink and reached over for another one.

  "My treat," Rydra said. "Why's she dead?"

  "Ran into Invaders. Only people who ain't dead, Brass, me and Three, and our Eye. Lost the whole platoon, our Slug. Damn good Slug too. Captain, that was a bad trip. The Eye, he cracked up without the Ear and Nose. They'd been discorporate for ten years together. Ron, Cathy and me, we'd only been tripled for a couple of months. But even so . . ."He shook his head. "It's bad."

  "Call your Three over," Rydra said.

  "Why?"

  "I'm looking for a full crew."

  Calli wrinkled his forehead. "We don't got no One anymore."

  "You're going to mope around here forever? Go to the Morgue."

  Calli humphed. "You gonna see my Three, you come on."

  Rydra shrugged in acquiescence, and the Customs Officer followed behind them.