Babel-17 by Samuel R. Delany
Look at yourself, Rydra.
Mirrored in him, she saw growing in the light of her, a darkness without words, only noise—growing! And cried out at its name and shape. The broken circuit boards! Butcher, those tapes that could only have been made on my console when I was there! Of course-!
Rydra, we can control them if we can name them.
How can we, now? We have to name ourselves first. And you don't know who you are.
Your words, Rydra, can we somehow use your words to find out who I am ?
Not my words. Butcher. But maybe yours, maybe Babel-17.
No . . .
I am, she whispered, believe me, Butcher, and you are.
III
"Headquarter's, Captain. Take a look through the sensory helmet. Those radio nets look like fireworks, and corporate souls tell me it smells like corned beef hash and fried eggs. Hey, thanks for getting us dusted out. Had a tendency toward hayfever when I was alive that I never did shake."
Rydra's voice: "The crew will debark with the Captain and the Butcher. The crew will take them to General Forester, together, and not let them be separated.''
The Butcher's voice: "There is a tape recording in the Captain's cabin on the console containing a grammar of Babel-17. The Slug will send that tape immediately to Dr. Markus T'mwarba on Earth by special delivery. Then inform Dr. T'mwarba by stellarphone that the tape was sent, at what time, and its contents."
"Brass, Slug! Something's wrong up there!" Ron's voice overcut the Captain's signal. "You ever heard them talk like that? Hey, Captain Wong, what's the matter . . .?"
PART FIVE: MARKUS T'MWARBA
Growing older I descended November.
The asymptotic cycle of the year
plummets to now. In crystal reveries
I pass beneath a fixed white line of trees
where dry leaves lie for footsteps to dismember.
They crackle with a muted sound like fear.
I ask cold air, "What is the word that frees?"
The wind says, "Change," and the white sun, "Re-
member."
—from Elektra
I
The spool of tape, the imperative directive from General Forester, and the infuriated Dr. T'mwarba reached Danil D. Appleby's office within thirty seconds of each other.
He was opening the flat box when the noise outside the partition made him look up. "Michael," he asked the intercom, "what's that?"
"Some madman who says he's a psychiatrist!"
"I am not mad!" Dr. T'mwarba said loudly. "But I know how long it takes a package to get from Administrative Alliance Headquarters to Earth, and it should have reached my door with this morning's mail. It didn't, which means it's been held up, and this is where you do things like that. Let me in."
Then the door crashed back against the wall and he was.
Michael craned around T'mwarba's hip: "Hey, Dan, I'm sorry. I'll call the—"
Dr. T'mwarba pointed to the desk and said. "That's mine. Gimme."
"Don't bother, Michael," the Customs Officer said before the door was slammed again. “Good afternoon, Dr. T'mwarba. Won't you sit down? This is addressed to you, isn't it? Don't look so surprised that I know you. I also handle security psyche-index integration, and all of us in the department know your brilliant work in schizoid-differentiation. I'm so glad to meet you."
"Why can't I have my package?"
"One moment and I'll find out." As he picked up the directive. Dr. T'mwarba picked up the box and stuck it in his pocket:
"Now you can explain."
The Customs Officer opened the letter. "It seems," he said, pressing his knee against the desk to release some of the hostility that had built up in very little time, "that you may have . . .eh, keep the tape on condition you leave for Administrative Alliance Headquarters this evening on the Midnight Falcon and bring the tape with you. Passage has been booked, thanking you in advance for your cooperation, sincerely, General X ,J. Forester."
"Why?"
"He doesn't say. I'm afraid, doctor, that unless you agree to go, I won't be able to let you keep that. And we can get it back.
"That's what you think. Have you any idea what they want?"
The Officer shrugged. "You were expecting it. Who's it from?"
"Rydra Wong."
“Wong?'' The Customs Officer had put both knees against the desk. He dropped them. “The poet, Rydra Wong? You know Rydra, too?"
"I've been her psychiatric advisor since she was twelve. Who are you?"
"I'm Danil D. Appleby. Had I known you were Rydra's friend, I would have ushered you up here myself!" The hostility had acted as a take off from which to spring into ebullient camaraderie. "If you're leaving on the Falcon, you've got time to step out a little while with me, haven't you? I was going to leave work early anyway. I have to stop off at . . . well someplace in Transport Town. Why didn't you say you knew her before? There's a delightfully ethnic place right near where I'm going. Get a reasonable meal and a good drink there; do you follow the wrestling? Most people think it's illegal, but you can watch it there. Ruby and Python are on display this evening. If you'll just make that one stop with me first, I know you'll find it fascinating. And I'll get you to the Falcon on time."
"I think I know the place."
“You go downstairs and they have this big bubble on the ceiling, where they fight. . . ?" Effervescent, he leaned forward. "As a matter of fact, Rydra first took me there."
Dr. T'mwarba began to smile.
The Customs Officer slapped the desk top. "We had a wild time that night! Simply wild!" He narrowed his eyes. "Ever been picked up by one of those . . ." He snapped his fingers three times. ”. . . in the discorporate sector? Now that still is illegal. But take a walk out there some evening."
"Come," laughed the doctor. “Dinner and a drink; best idea I've heard all day. I'm starved and I haven't seen a good match in four months."
"I've never been inside this place before," the Officer said, as they stepped from the monorail. "I called to make an appointment but they told me I didn't need me, just to come in; they were open till six. I figured what the hell, I'd take off from work." They crossed the street and passed the newsstand where frayed, unshaven loaders were picking up schedule sheets for incoming flights. Three stellarmen in green uniforms lurched along the sidewalk, arms about each other's shoulders. "You know," the Customs Officer was saying, "I've had quite a battle with myself, I've wanted to do it ever since I first came down here—hell, ever since I first went to the movies and saw pictures. But anything really bizarre just wouldn't go at the office. Then I said to myself, it could be something simple, covered up when I was wearing clothes. Here we are."
The Officer pushed open the door of PIastiplasm Plus ("Addendums, Superscripts, and Footnotes to the Beautiful Body").
"You know I always meant to ask someone in authority; do you think there's anything psychologically off about wanting something like this?"
"Not at all."
A young lady with blue eyes, lips, hair, and wings said, "You can go right in. Unless you want to check our catalogue first."
"Oh, I know exactly what I want," the Customs Officer assured her. "This way?"
"That's right."
"Actually," Dr. T'mwarba went on, "it's psychologically important to feel in control of your body, that you can change it, shape it. Going on a six month diet or a successful muscle building program can give quite a sense of satisfaction- So can a new nose, chin, or set of scales and feathers."
They were in a room with white operating tables. "Can I help you?" asked a smiling, Polynesian cosmetisurgeon in a blue smock. "Why don't you lie down here?"
"I'm just watching," Dr. T'mwarba said.
"It's listed in your catalogue as 5463," the Customs Officer declared. "I want it there." He clapped his left hand to his right shoulder.
"Oh yes. I rather like that one myself. Just a moment." He opened the top of a stand by the table. Instruments glittered.
The surgeon was off to the glass-faced refrigeration unit at the far wall where behind the glass doors intricate plastiplasm shapes were blurred by frost. He returned with a tray full of various fragments. The only recognizable one was the front half of a miniature dragon with jeweled eyes, glittering scales, and opalescent wings: it was less than two inches long.
"When he's connected up to your nervous system, you'll be able to make him whistle, hiss, roar, flap his wings and spit sparks, though it may take a few days to assimilate him into your body picture. Don't be surprised if at first he just burps and looks seasick. Take your shirt off, please."
The Officer opened his collar.
"We'll just block off all sensation from your shoulder on. . . there, that didn't really hurt. This? Oh, it's a local venial and arterial constrictant; we want to keep things clean. Now, we'll just cut you along the—well, if it upsets you, don't look. Talk to your friend there. It'll just take a few minutes. Oh, that must have tickled all down in your tummy! Never mind. Just once more. Fine. That's your shoulder joint. I know; your arm does look sort of funny hanging there without it. We'll just stick in this transparent platisplasm cage now. Exact same articulation as your shoulder joint, and it holds your muscles out of the way. See, it's got grooves for your arteries. Move your chin, please. If you want to watch, look in the mirror. Now we'll just crimp it around the edges. Keep this vivatape around the rim of the cage for a couple of days until things grow together. There's not much chance of its pulling apart unless you strain your arm suddenly but you ought to be safe. Now I'll just connect the little fellow in there to the nerve. This will hurt—"
"Gnnnnn!" The Customs Officer half rose.
"—Sit! Sit! All right, the little catch here—look in the mirror—is to open the cage. You'll leam how to make him come out and do tricks, but don't be impatient . It takes a bit of time. Let me turn the feeling back on in your arm."
The surgeon removed the electrodes and the Officer whistled.
“Stings a little. It will for about an hour. If there's any redness or inflammation, please don't hesitate to come back. Everything that comes through that doorway gets perfectly sterilized, but every five or six years somebody comes down with an infection. You can put your shirt on now."
As they walked into the street, the Customs Officer flexed his shoulder. "You know they claim it should make absolutely no difference." He made a face. "My fingers feel funny. Do you think he might have bruised a nerve?"
"I doubt it," Dr. T'mwarba said, "but you will if you keep twisting like that. You'll pull the vivatape loose. Let's go eat."
The Officer fingered his shoulder. "It feels odd to have a three inch hole there and your arm still working."
"So," Dr. Tmwarba said over his mug, "Rydra first brought you to Transport Town."
"Yes. Actually—well, I only met her that once. She was getting a crew together for a government sponsored trip. I was just along to approve indices. But something happened that evening."
"What was it?"
“I saw a bunch of the weirdest, oddest people I have ever met in my life, who thought different, and acted different, and even made love different. And they made me laugh, and get angry, and be happy, and be sad, and excited, and even fall in love a little." He glanced up at the sphere of the wrestling arena aloft in the bar. "And they didn't seem to be so weird or strange anymore."
"Communication was working that night?"
“I guess so. It's presumptuous my calling her by her first name. But I feel like she's my ... friend. I'm a lonely man, in a city of lonely men. And when you find some place where . . . communications are working, you come back to see if it will happen again."
"Has it?"
Danil D. Appteby looked down from the ceiling and began to unbutton his shirt. "Let's have dinner." He shrugged his shirt over the back of the chair and glanced down at the dragon caged in his shoulder. "You come back anyway." Turning in his seat, he picked his shirt up, folded it neatly, and put it down again. "Dr. T'mwarba, have you any idea why they want you to come to Administrative Alliance Headquarters?"
"I assume it concerns Rydra and this tape."
“Because you said you were her doctor I just hope it isn't a medical reason. If anything happened to her, it would be terrible- For me, I mean. She managed to say so much to me in that one evening, so very simply." He laughed and ran his finger around the rim of the cage.
The beast inside gurgled. "And half the time she wasn't even looking in my direction when she said it.”
"I hope she's all right,'* Dr. T'mwarba said. "She'd better be."
II
BEFORE THE Midnight Falcon landed, he inveigled the captain into letting him speak with Flight Control. “I want to know when the Rimbaud came in."
"Just a moment, sir. I don't believe it has. Certainly not within the past six months. It would take a little time to check back further than—"
"No. It would be more like the past few days. Are you sure the Rimbaud did not land here recently under Captain Rydra Wong?"
"Wong? I believe she did land yesterday, but not in the Rimbaud. It was an unmarked fighter ship. There was some mix-up because the serial numbers had been filed off the tubes and there was a possibility it might have been stolen."
"Was Captain Wong all right when she disembarked?"
"She'd apparently relinquished command to her—'' The voice stopped.
"Well?"
"Excuse me, sir. This has been all marked classified. I didn't see the sticker, and it was accidentally put back in the regular file. I can't give you any more information. It's only cleared to authorized persons."
"I'm Dr. Markus T'mwarba," the doctor said, with authority and no idea whether it would do any good.
"Oh, there is a notation concerning you, sir. But you're not on the cleared list."
"Then what the hell does it say, young lady?"
“Just that if you requested information, to refer you directly to General Forester."
An hour later he walked into General Forester's office. "All right, what's the matter with Rydra?"
"Where's the tape?"
"If Rydra wanted me to have it, she had good reason. If she'd wanted you to have it, she would have given it to you. Believe me, you won't get your hands on it unless I give it to you."
"I'd expected more cooperation. Doctor."
"I am cooperating. I'm here. General. But you must want me to do something, and unless I know exactly what's going on, I can't."
"It's a very unmilitary attitude," General Forester said, coming around the desk. "It's one I'm having to deal with more and more, recently. I don't know whether I like it. But I don't know whether I dislike it either." The green-suited stellarman sat on the desk's edge, touched the stars on his collar, looked pensive. "Miss Wong was the first person I've met in a long time to whom I could not say: do this, do that, and be damned if you inquire about the consequences. The first time I spoke to her about Babel-17, I thought I could just hand her the transcription, and she would hand it back to me in English. She told me, flatly: No; I would have to tell her more. That's the first time anyone's told me I had to do anything in fourteen years. I may not like it; I sure as hell respect it." His hands dropped protectively to his lap (Protective? Was it Rydra who had taught him to interpret that movement, T'mwarba wondered briefly.) "It's so easy to get caught in your fragment of the world. When a voice comes cutting through, it's important. Rydra Wong . . ." and the General stopped, and expression settling on his features that made T'mwarba chill as he looked at it with what Rydra had taught him.
“Is she all right. General Forester? Is this something medical?''
"I don't know," the General said. "There's a woman in my inner office—and a man. I can't tell you whether the woman is Rydra Wong or not. It certainly isn't the same woman I talked to that evening on Earth about Babel-17."
But T'mwarba, already at the door, shoved it open.
A man and a woman looked up. The man
He put both fists on his hips: "All right, what am I about to say to you?"
She said: "Non comprehension."
Breathing pattern, curl of hands in lap, carriage of shoulders, the details whose import she had demonstrated to him a thousand times: he learned in the horrifying length of a breath just how much they identified. For a moment he wished she had never taught him, because they were all gone, and their absence in her familiar body were worse than scars and disfigurements. He began in a voice that was habitually for her, the one he had praised or chastened her with, "I was going to say—if this is a joke, sweetheart, I'll . . . paddle you." It ended with the voice for strangers, for salesmen and wrong numbers, and he felt unsteadied. "If you're not Rydra, who are you?"
She said: "Non comprehension of the question. General Forester, is this man Doctor Markus T'mwarba?" .
"Yes, he is."
"Look." Dr. T'mwarba turned to the General. "I'm sure you've gone over fingerprints, metabolic rates, retina patterns, that sort of identification."
"That's Rydra Wong's body. Doctor."
“All right: hypnotics, experimental imprinting, graft of pre-synapsed cortical matter—can you think of any other way to get one mind into another head?"
"Yes. Seventeen. There's no evidence of any of them." The General stepped from the door. "She's made it clear she wants to speak to you alone. I'll be right outside." He closed the door.
"I'm pretty sure who you're not," Doctor T'mwarba said after a moment.