Babel-17 Read online

  "Hey, stupid, swing around."

  The kid who turned on the bar stool was maybe nineteen. The Customs Officer thought of a snarl of metal bands. Calli was a large, comfortable man—

  "Captain Wong, this is Ron, best Three to come out of the Solar System."

  —But Ron was small, thin, with uncannily sharp muscular definition: pectorals like scored metal plates beneath drawn wax skin; stomach like ridged hosing, arms like braided cables. Even the facial muscles stood at the back of the jaw and jammed against the separate columns of his neck. He was unkempt and towheaded and sapphire eyed, but the only cosmetic surgery evident was the bright rose growing on his shoulder. He flung out a quick smile and touched his forehead with a forefinger in salute. His nails were nub-gnawed on fingers like knotted lengths of white rope.

  "Captain Wong is looking for a crew."

  Ron shifted on the stool, raising his head a little; every other muscle in his body moved too. like snakes under milk,

  The Customs Officer saw Rydra's eyes widen. Not understanding her reaction, he ignored it.

  "Don't got no One,'* Ron said. His smile was quick and sad again.

  "Suppose I found a One for you?"

  The Navigators looked at each other.

  Calli turned to Rydra and rubbed the side of his nose with his thumb." 'You know the thing about a triple like us—"

  Rydra's left hand caught her right. "Like this, you have to be. My choice is subject to your approval, of course."

  "Well, it's pretty difficult for someone else—"

  "It's impossible. But it's your choice. I just make suggestions. But my suggestions are damn good ones. What do you say?"

  Calli's thumb moved from his nose to his earlobe. He shrugged. "You can't make an offer much better than that."

  Rydra looked at Ron.

  The kid put one foot up on the stool, hugged his knee, and peered across his patella. "I say, let's see who you suggest."

  She nodded. "Fair."

  "You know, jobs for broken triples aren't all that common." Calli put his hand on Ron's shoulder.

  "Yeah, but—"

  Rydra looked up. "Let's watch the wrestling."

  Along the counter people raised their heads. At the tables, patrons released the catch in their chair arms so that the backs swung to half recline.

  Calli's mug clinked on the counter, and Ron raised both feet to the stool and leaned back against the bar.

  "What are they looking at?" the Customs Officer asked. "Where's everybody—" Rydra put her hand on the back of his neck and did something so that he laughed and swung his head up. Then he sucked a great breath and let it out slowly.

  The smoky globe, hung in the vault, was shot with colored light. The room had gone dim. Thousands of watts of floodlights struck the plastic surface and gleamed on the faces below as smoke in the bright sphere faded.

  "What's going to happen?" the Customs Officer asked. **Is that where they wrestle . . . ?"

  Rydra brushed her hand over his mouth and he nearly swallowed his tongue: but was quiet.

  And the Silver Dragon came, wings working in the smoke, silver feathers like clashed blades, scales on the grand haunches shaking; she rippled her ten-foot body

  and squirmed in the antigravity field, green lips leering, silver lids batting over green orbs,. "It's a woman!" breathed the Customs Officer.

  An appreciative tattoo of finger snapping scattered through the audience.

  Smoke rolled in the globe—

  "That's our Brass!" whispered Calli.

  —and Brass yawned and shook his head, ivory saber teeth glistening with spittle, muscles humped on shoulders and arms; brass claws unsheathed six inches from yellow plush paws. Bunched bands on his belly bent above them. The barbed tail beat on the globe's wall. His mane, sheared to prevent handholds, ran like water.

  Calli grabbed the Customs Officer's shoulder.

  "Snap your fingers, man! That's our Brass!"

  The Customs Officer, who had never been able to, nearly broke his hand.

  The globe flared red. The two pilots turned to one another across the sphere's diameter. Voices quieted. The Customs Officer glanced from the ceiling to the people around him. Every other face was up. The Navigator, Three, was hunched in a fetal knot on the barstool. Copper shifting; Rydra too dropped her eyes to glance at the lean bunched arms and striated thighs of the rose-shouldered boy.

  Above, the opponents flexed and stretched, drifting. A sudden movement from the Dragon, and Brass drew back, then launched from the wall.

  The Customs Officer grabbed something.

  The two forms struck, grappled, spun against a wall and ricocheted. People began to stamp, arm over arm, leg wrapped around leg, till Brass whirled loose from her and was hurled to the upper wall of the arena. Shaking his head, he righted. Below, alert, the Dragon twisted and writhed, anticipation jerking her wings. Brass leapt from the ceiling, reversed suddenly, and caught the Dragon with his hind feet. She staggered back, flailing. Saber teeth came together and missed-

  "What are they trying to do?" the Customs Officer whispered. "How can you tell who's winning?" He looked down again: what he'd grabbed was Calli's shoulder.

  "When one can throw the other against the wall and only touch the far wall himself with one limb on the ricochet," Calli explained, not looking down, "that's a fall."

  The Silver Dragon snapped her body like bent metal released, and Brass shot away and spread-eagled against the globe. But as she floated back to take the shock on one hind leg, she lost her balance and the second leg touched, too.

  The anticipatory breath loosed in the audience. Encouraging snapping; Brass recovered, leaped, pushed her to the wall, but his rebound was too sharp and he, too, staggered on three limbs.

  A twist in the center again. The Dragon snarled, stretched, shook her scales. Brass glowered, peering with eyes like gold coins hooded, spun back quaking, then forward.

  Silver whirled beneath his shoulder blow, hit the globe. She looked for the world as if she were trying to climb the side. Brass rebounded lightly, caught himself on one paw, then pushed away.

  The globe flashed green, and Calli pounded the bar. "Look at him show that tinsel bitch!"

  Grappling limbs braided one another, and claw caught claw till the stifled arms shook, broke apart. Two more falls that went to neither side; then the Silver Dragon came head first into Brass' chest, knocked him back, and recovered on tail alone. Below the crowd stamped.

  "That's a foul!" Calli exclaimed, shaking the Customs Officer away. "Damn it, that's a foul!" But the globe flashed green again. Officially the second fall was hers.

  Warily now they swam in the sphere. Twice the Dragon feinted, and Brass jerked aside his claws or sucked in his belly to avoid her.

  "Why don't she lay off him?'' Calli demanded of the sky. “She's nagging him to death. Grapple and fight!"

  As if in answer. Brass sprang, again swiping her shoulder; what would have been a perfect fall got messed up because the Dragon caught his arm and he swerved off, smashing clumsily against the plastic surface.

  "She can't do that!" This time it was the Customs Officer. He grabbed Calli again. "Can she do that? I don't think they should allow—“ And he bit his tongue because Brass swung back, hauled her from the wall, flipped her between his legs, and as she scrambled off the plastic, he bounced on his forearm and hovered centrally, flexing for the crowd.

  "That's it!" cried Calli. "Two out of three!"

  The globe flashed green again. Snapping broke into applause. "Did he win?" demanded the Customs Officer. "Did he win?"

  "Listen! Of course he won! Hey, let's go see him. Come on. Captain!"

  Rydra had already started through the crowd. Ron sprang behind her, and Calli, dragging the Customs Officer, came after- A flight of black tile steps took them into a room with couches where a few groups of men and women stood around Condor, a great gold and crimson creature, who was being made ready to fight Ebony who waited alone in
the comer. The arena exit opened and Brass came in sweating.

  "Hey," Calli called. "Hey, that was great, boy. And the Captain here wants to talk to you."

  Brass stretched, then dropped to all fours, a low rumble in his chest. He shook his mane, then his gold eyes widened in recognition. "Ca'tain Wong!" The mouth, distended through cosmetisurgically implanted fangs, could not deal with a plosive labial unless it was voiced- "How you'd like me tonight?"

  "Well enough to want you to pilot me through the Specelli." She roughed a tuft of yellow behind his ear. "You said sometime ago you'd like to show me what you could do."

  "Yeah," Brass nodded. "I just think I'm dreaming." He pulled away his loin rag and swabbed his neck and arms with the bunched cloth, then caught the Customs Officer's amazed expression. "Just cosmetisurgery." He kept on swabbing.

  "Hand him your psyche-rating," Rydra said, "and he'll approve you."

  "That means we leave tomorrow. Ca'tain?"

  "At dawn."

  From his belt pouch Brass drew a thin metal card. "Here you go. Customs."

  The Customs Officer scanned the runic marking. On a metal tracing plate from his back pocket, he noted the shift in stability index, but decided to integrate for the exact summation later on. Practice told him it was welt above acceptable. "Miss Wong, I mean Captain Wong, what about their cards?" He turned to Calli and Ron.

  Ron reached behind his neck and rubbed his scapula. "You don't worry about us till you get a Navigator-One." The hard, adolescent face held an engaging belligerence.

  "We'll check them later," Rydra said- "We've got more people to find first."

  "You're looking for a full crew?" asked Brass.

  Rydra nodded. "What about the Eye that came back with you?"

  Brass shook his head. "Lost his Ear and Nose, They were a real close tri'le, Ca'tain. He hung around maybe six hours before he went back to the Morgue."

  "I see. Can you recommend anyone?"

  "No one in 'articular. Just hang around the Discor'orate Sector and see what turns u'."

  "If you want a crew by morning, we better start now," said Calli.

  "Let's go," saidRydra.

  As they walked to the ramp's foot, the Customs Officer asked, "The Discorporate Sector?"

  'What about it?'' Rydra was at the rear of the group.

  "That's so—well, I don't like the idea."

  Rydra laughed. "Because of the dead men? They won't hurt you."

  "And I know that's illegal, for bodily persons to be in the Discorporate Sector."

  "In certain parts," Rydra corrected, and the other men laughed now. "We'll stay out of the illegal sections—if we can."

  "Would you like your clothes back?" the check-girl asked.

  People had been stopping to congratulate Brass, pounding at his hip with appreciative fists and snapping their fingers. Now he swung his contour cape over his head. It fell to his shoulders, clasped his neck, draped under his arms and around his thick hams. Brass waved to the crowd and started up the ramp.

  "You can really judge a pilot by watching him wrestle?" the officer inquired of Rydra.

  She nodded. "In the ship, the pilot's nervous system is connected directly with the controls. The whole hyperstasis transit consists of him literally wrestling the stasis shifts. You judge by his reflexes, his ability to control his artificial body. An experienced Transporter can tell exactly how he'll work with hyperstasis currents."

  "I'd heard about it, of course. But this was the first time I've seen it- It was . . . exciting."

  "Yes," Rydra said.

  As they reached the ramp's head, lights again pierced the globe. Ebony and Condor circled in the fighting sphere.

  On the sidewalk Brass dropped back, loping on all fours, to Rydra's side. "What about a Slug and a 'latoon?"

  "I'd like to get a one-trip platoon if I can."

  "Why so green?"

  ''I want to train them my way. The older groups tend to be too set."

  "A one-tri' grou' can be a hell of a 'roblem to disci'line. And inefficient as 'iss, so I've heard. Never been with one myself."

  “As long as there're no out and out nuts, I don't care. Besides, if I want one now, I can be surer of getting one by morning if I put my order in at Navy."

  Brass nodded. "Your request in yet?"

  “I wanted to check with my pilot first and see if you had any preferences."

  They were passing a street phone on the comer lamppost. Rydra ducked beneath the plastic hood. A minute later she was saying, "—a platoon for a run toward Specelli scheduled at dawn tomorrow. I know that it's short notice, but I don't need a particularly seasoned group. Even a one trip will do." She looked from under the hood and winked at them. "Fine. I'll call later to get their psyche-indices for customs approval. Yes, I have an Officer with me. Thank you."

  She came from under the hood. "Closest way to the Discorporate Sector is through there."

  The streets narrowed about them, twisting through one another, deserted. Then a stretch of concrete where metal turrets rose, crossed, and recrossed. Wires webbed them. Pylons of bluish light dropped half shadows.

  "Is this . . .?" the Customs Officer began. Then he was quiet. Walking out, they slowed their steps. Against the darkness red light shot between towers. "What . . . ?"

  "Just a transfer. They go all night," Calli explained. Green lightning crackled to their left. "Transfer?"

  "It's a quick exchange of energies resulting from the relocation of discorporate states," the Navigator-Two volunteered glibly.

  "But I still don't . . ."

  They had moved between the pylons now when a flickering coalesced. Silver latticed with red fires glimmered through industrial smog. Three figures formed: women, sequined skeletons glittered toward them, casting hollow eyes.

  Kittens clawed the Customs Officer's back, for strut work pylons gleamed behind the apparitional bellies.

  "The faces," he whispered. "As soon as you look away, you can't remember what they look like. When you look at them, they look like people, but when you look away—" He caught his breath as another passed.

  "You can't remember!" He stared after them.

  "Dead?" He shook his head. "You know I've been approving psyche-indices on Transport workers corporate and discorporate for ten years. And I've never been close enough to speak to a discorporate soul; Oh, I've seen pictures and occasionally passed one of the less fantastic on the street. But this . . ."

  "There's some jobs"--Calli's voice was as heavy with alcohol as his shoulders with muscle—"Some jobs on a Transport Ship you just can't give to a live human being."

  "I know, I know," said the Customs Officer. "So you use dead ones."

  "That's right." Calli nodded. "Like the Eye, Ear, and Nose, A live human scanning all that goes on in those hyperstasis frequencies would—well, die first, and go crazy second."

  "I do know the theory," the Customs Officer stated sharply.

  Calli suddenly cupped the Officer's cheek in his hand and pulled him close to his own pocked face. "You don't know anything. Customs." The tone was of their first exchange in the cafe. "Aw, you hide in your Customs cage, cage hid in the safe gravity of Earth, Earth held firm by the sun, sun fixed headlong toward Vega, all in the predicted tide of this spiral arm—'' He gestured across night where the Milky Way would run over a less bright city. "And you never break free!" Suddenly he pushed the little spectacled red head away. "Ehhh! You have nothing to say to me!"

  The bereaved navigator caught a guy cable slanting from support to concrete. It twanged. The low note set something loose in the Officer's throat which reached his mouth with the metal taste of outrage.

  He would have spat it, but Rydra's copper eyes were now as close to his face as the hostile, pitted visage had been.

  She said; "He was part," the words lean, calm, her eyes intent on not losing his, "of a triple, a close, precarious, emotional and sexual relation with two other people. And one of them has just died."

 
; The edge of her tone hued away the bulk of the Officer's anger; but a sliver escaped him: "Perverts!"

  Ron put his head to the side, his musculature showing clear the double of hurt and bewilderment. "There're some jobs," he echoed Calli's syntax, "some jobs on a Transport Ship you just can't give to two people alone. The jobs are too complicated."

  "I know." Then he thought, I've hurt the boy, too. Calli leaned on a girder. Something else was working in the Officer's mouth,

  "You have something to say," Rydra said.

  Surprise that she knew prized his lips. He looked from Calli to Ron, back. "I'm sorry for you."

  Calli's brows raised, then returned, his expression settling. "I'm sorry for you too."

  Brass reared. "There's a transfer conclave about a quarter of a mile down in the medium energy states. That would attract the sort of Eye, Ear and Nose you want for Specelli." He grinned at the Officer through his fangs. "That's one of your illegal sections. The hallucination count goes way u', and some cor'orate egos can't handle it. But most sane 'eo'le don't have any 'roblem."

  "If it's illegal, I'd just as soon wait right here," the Customs Officer said. "You can just come back and pick me up. I'll approve their indices then."

  Rydra nodded. Calli threw one arm around the waist of the ten-foot pilot, the other around Ron's shoulder. "Come on. Captain, if you want to get your crew by morning."

  "If we don't find what we want in an hour, we'll be back anyway," she said.

  The Customs Officer watched them move away between the slim towers—

  IV

  —Recall from broken banks the color of earth breaking into clear pool water her eyes; the figure blinking her eyes and speaking.

  He said: "An Officer, ma'am. A Customs Officer."

  Surprise at her witty return, at first hurt, then amusement following. He answered: "About ten years. How long have you been discorporate?"

  And she moved closer to him, her hair holding the recalled odor of. And the sharp transparent features reminding him of. More words from her, now, making him laugh.

  "Yes, this is all very new to me. Doesn't the whole vagueness with which everything seems to happen get you, too?"