Samuel R. Delaney - Babel - 17

file:///F|/rah/Samuel%20R.%20Delaney/Delany,%20Samuel%20R%20-%20Babel-17.txt

PART

ONE:

RYDRA

WONG

. . . Here is the hub of ambiguity.

Electric spectrums splash across the street.

Equivocation knots the shadowed features

of boys who are not boys; a quirk of darkness

shrivels a full mouth to senility

or pares it to a razor-edge, pours acid

across the amber cheek . . -

... or smashes in the pelvic arch

and wells a dark clot oozing on a chest

dispelled with motion or a flare of light

that swells the lips and dribbles them with blood . . .

They say the same crowd surges up the street

and surges down again, like driftwood borne

tidewise ashore and sucked away with backwash,

only to slap into the sand again,

only to be jerked out and spun away.

Driftwood; me narrow hips, and liquid eyes,

the widefiung shoulders and the rough-cast hands,

the gray-faced jackals kneeling to their prey.

The colors disappear at break of day

when stragglers toward the west riverdocks meet

young sailors ambling shipward on the street . . .

—from Prism and Lens, M -H,

IT'S A PORT CITY.

Here fumes mst the sky, the'General thought. Indus-

trial gases flushed the evening with oranges, salmons,

purples with too much red. West, ascending and de-

scending transports, shuttling cargoes to stellarcenters

and satellites, lacerated the clouds. It's a rotten poor

city too, thought the General, turning the comer by the

garbage-strewn curb.

Since the Invasion six ruinous embargoes for months

apiece had strangled this city whose lifeline must pulse

with interstellar commerce to survive. Sequestered,

how could this city exist? Six times in twenty years he'd

asked himself that. Answer? It couldn't.

Panics, riots, burnings, twice cannibalism—

The General looked front the silhouetted loading

towers that jutted behind the rickety monorail to the

grimy buildings. The streets were smaller here, clut-

tered with transport workers, loaders, a few stellarmen

in green uniforms, and the hoard of pale, proper men

and women who managed the intricate sprawl of cus-

toms operations. They are quiet now, intent on home or

work, the General thought. Yet all of these people have

lived for two decades under the Invasion. They've

starved during the embargoes, broken windows,

looted, run screaming before fire-hoses, torn flesh from

a corpse's arm with decalcified teeth.

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Who is this animal man? He asked himself the

abstract question to blur the lines of memory. It was

easier, being a general, to ask about the 'animal man'

BABEL-17

than about the woman who had sat in the middle of the

sidewalk during the last embargo holding l^er skeletal

baby by one leg, or the three scrawny teen-age girls

who had attacked him on the street with razors (—she

had hissed through brown teeth, the bar of metal glis-

tening toward his chest, "Come here. Beefsteak! Come

getme.Lunchmeat- . ."He had used karate—)orthe

blind man who had walked up the avenue screaming. \

Pale and proper men and women now, who spoke

softly, who always hesitated before they let an expres-

sion fix their faces, with pale, proper patriotic ideas:

work for victory over the Invaders; Alona Star and Kip

Rhyak were great in "Stellar Holiday" but Ronald

Quar was the best serious actor around. They listened to

Hi Lite's music (or did they listen, wondered the Gen-

eral, during those slow dances where no one touched).

A position inCustoms was a good secure job—working

directly in Transport was probably more exciting and

fun to watch in the movies; but really, such strange

people—

Those with more intelligence and sophistication dis-

cussed Rydra Wong's poetry.

They spoke of the Invasion often, with some hundred

phrases consecrated by twenty years' repetition on

newscasts and in the papers. They referred to the em-

bargoes seldom, only by the one word.

Take any of them, take any million. Who arc they?

What do they want? What would they say if given a

chance to say anything?

Rydra Wong has become this age's voice. The Gen-

eral recalled the glib line from a hyperbolic review.

Paradoxical: a military leader with a military goal, he

was going to meet Rydra Wong now.

The street lights came on and his image glazed sud-

••¥.

BABEL-17

denly on the plate glass window of the bar. That's right,

I'm not wearing my uniform now. He saw a tall, mus-

cular man with the authority of half a century in his

craggy face. He was uncomfortable in the gray civilian

suit. Till age thirty, the physical impression he had left

with people was 'big and bumbling'. Afterwards—the

change had coincided with the Invasion—it was 'mas-

sive and authoritarian',

Had Rydra Wong come to see him at Administrative

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Alliance Headquarters, he would have felt secure. But

he was in civvies, not in stellarman-green. The bar was

new to him. And she was the most famous poet in.five

explored galaxies. For the first time in a long while he

felt bumbling again.

He went inside.

And whispered, "MyGod, she's beautiful, without

even having to pick her from among the few other

women. I didn't know she was so beautiful, not from

the pictures. ...

She turned to him (as the ^gure in the mirror behind

the counter caught sight of him and turned away), stood

up from the stool, smiled.

He walked forward, took her hand, the words Good

evening, Miss Wong tumbling on his tongue till he

swallowed them unspoken. And now she was about to

speak. She wore copper lipstick, and the pupils of her

eyes were like beaten disks of copper—

"Babel-17," she said. '"I haven't solved it yet,

General Forester."

A knitted indigo dress, and her hair like fast water at

night spilling over one shoulder; he said, "That doesn't

really surprise me. Miss Wong."

Surprise, he thought. She puts her hand on the bar,

she leans back on the stool, hip moving in knitted blue,

BABEL-17

and with each movement, 1 am amazed, surprised,

bewildered. Can I be this off guard, or can she really be

that—

"But I've gotten further than you people at Military

have been able to." The gentle line of her mouth bowed

with gentler laughter.

"From what I've been led to expect of you. Miss

Wong, that doesn't surprise me either." Who is she? he

thought. He had asked the question of the abstract

population. He had asked it of his own reflected image,

He asked it of her now, thinking. No one else matters,

but I must know about her- That's important. I have to

know.

"First of all. General," she was saying, '*Babel-17

isn't a code."

His mind skidded back to the subject and arrived

teetering. "Not a code? But I thought Cryptography

had at least established—" He stopped, because he

wasn't sure what Cryptography had established, and

because he needed another moment to haul himself

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down from the ledges of her high cheekbones, to retreat

from the caves of her eyes. Tightening the muscles of

his face, he marshaled his thoughts to Babel-17. The

Invasion: Babel-17 might be one key to ending this

twenty-year scourge. "You mean we've just been try-

ing to decipher a lot of nonsense?"

"It's not a code," she repeated. "It's a language."

The General frowned. "Well, whatever you call it,

code or language, we still have to figure out what it

says. As long as we don't understand it, we're a hell of

a way from where we should be." The exhaustion and

pressure of the last months homed in his belly, a secret

beast to strike the back of his tongue, harshening his

words.

BABEL-17

Her smile had left, and both hands were on the

counter. He wanted to retract the harshness. She said,

"You're not directly connected with the Cryptography

Department." The voice was even, calming.

He shook his head.

"Then let me tell you this. Basically .General Fores-

ter, there are two types of codes. In the first, letters, or

symbols that stand for letters, are shuffled and juggled

according to a pattern. In the second, letters, words, or

groups of words are replaced by other letters, symbols,

or words. A code can be one type or the other, or a

combination. But both have this in common: once you

find the key, you just plug it in and out come logical

sentences. A language, however, has its own internal

logic, its own grammar, its own way of putting

thoughts together with words that span various spectra

of meaning. There is no key you can plug in to unlock

the exact meaning. At best you can get a close approx-

imation."

"Do you mean that Babel-17 decodes into some

other language?''

"Not at all. That's the first thing I checked. We can

take a probability scan on various elements and see if

they are congruent with other language patterns, even if

these elements are in the wrong order. No. Babel-17 is

a language itself which we do not understand."

' 'I think''—General Forester tried to smile—"What

you're trying to tell me is that because it isn't a code,

but rather an alien language, we might as well give

up." If this were defeat, receiving it from her was

almost relief.

But she shook her head. "I'm afraid that's not what

I'm saying at all. Unknown languages have been de-

ciphered without translations. Linear B and Hittite for

BABEl-17

example. But if I'm to get further with Babel-17, I'll

have to know a great deal more."

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The General raised his eyebrows. "What more do

'you need to know? We've given you all our samples.

When we get more, we'll certainly—"

"General, 1 have to know everything you know

about Babel-17 where you got it, when, under what

circumstances, anything that might give me a clue to

the subject matter."

"We're released all the information that we—"

"You gave me ten pages of double-spaced typewrit-

ten garble with the code name Babel-17 and asked me

what it meant. With just that I can't tell you. With

more, I might. It's that simple."

He thought: If it were that simple, if it were only that

simple, we would never have called you in about it,

Rydra Wong.

She said: "If it were that simple, if it were only that

simple, you would never have called me in about it,

General Forester."

He started, for one absurd moment convinced she

had read his mind. But of course „ she would know that.

Wouldn't she?

"General Forester, has your Cryptography Depart-

ment discovered it's a language?"

"If they have, they haven't told me."

"I'm fairly sure they don't know. I've made a few

structural inroads on the grammar. Have they done

that?"

"No."

"General, although they know a hell of a lot about

codes, they know nothing of the nature of language.

That sort of idiotic specialization is one of the reasons I

haven't worked with them for the past six years."

BABEL-17

Who is she? he thought again. A security dossier had

been handed him that morning, but he had passed it to

his aide and merely noted, later, that it had been marked

'approved'. He heard himself say, "Perhaps if you

could tell me a little about yourself. Miss Wong, I could

speak more freely with you.'' Illogical, yet he'd spoken

it with measured calm and surety. Was her expression

quizzical?

"What do you want to know?"

"What I already know is only this: your name, and

that some time ago you worked for Military Cryptog-

raphy. I know that even though you left when very

young, you had enough of a reputation so that, six years

later, the people who remembered you said

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unanimously—after they had struggled with Babel-17

for a month—'Send it to Rydra Wong.' " He paused.

"And you tell me you have gotten someplace with it.

So they were right."

"Let's have drinks," she said.

The bartender drifted forward, drifted back, leaving

two small glasses of smoky green. She sipped, watch-

ing him. Her eyes, he thought, slant up like astounded

wings.

"I'm not from Earth," she said. "My father was a

Communications engineer at StellarcenterX-11-Bjust

beyond Uranus. My mother was a translator for the

Court of Outer Worlds. Until I was seven I was the

spoiled brat of the Stellarcenter. There weren't many

children. We moved rockside to Uranus-XXVlI in '52.

By the time I was twelve, I knew seven Earth languages

and could make myself understood in five extra-

terrestrial tongues. I pick up languages like most people

pick up the lyrics to popular songs. 1 lost both parents

during the second embargo."

BABEL-17

"You were on Uranus during the embargo?'*

"You know what happened?"

'l! know the Outer Planets were hit a lot harder than

the Inner."

"You don't know. But yes, they were." She drew a

breath as memory surprised her. "One drink isn't

enough to make me talk about it, though. When I came

out of the hospital, there was a chance 1 may have had

brain damage."

"Brain damage—?"

"Malnutrition you know about. Add neuro-sciatic

plague."

"1 know about plague, too."

"Anyway, 1 came to Earth to stay with an aunt and

uncle here and receive neuro-therapy. Only I didn't

need it. And I don't know whether it was psychological

or physiological, but I came out of the whole business

with total verbal recall. I'd been bordering on it all my

life so it wasn't too odd. But 1 also had perfect pitch."

'Doesn't that usually go along with lightning calcula-

tion and eidetic memory? 1 can see how all of them

would be of use to a cryptographer."

"I'm a fair mathematician, but no lightning cal-

culator. I test high on visual conception and spacial

relations—dream in technicolor and all that—but the

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total recall is strictly verbal. I had already begun writ-

ing. During the summer I got a job translating with the

government, and began to bone up on codes. In a little

while 1 discovered that I had a certain—knack. I'm not

a good cryptographer. I don't have the patience to work

that hard on anything written down that I didn't write

myself. Neurotic as hell; that's another reason I gave it

up for poetry. But the ' knack' was sort of frightening.

Somehow, when 1 had too much work to do, and

10

BABEL-17

- somewhere else I really wanted to be, and was scared

my supervisor would start getting on my back, sud-

denly everything I knew about communication would

come together in my head, and it was easier to read the

thing in front of me and say what it said than to be that

scared and tired and miserable."

She glanced at her drink.

"Eventually the knack got to where I could control

it. By then I was nineteen and had a reputation as the

little girl who could crack anything. I guess it was

knowing something about language that did it, being

more facile at recognizing patterns—like distinguish-

ing grammatical order from random rearrangement by

feel, which is what I did with Babel-17."

"Why did you leave?"

"I've given you two reasons. A third is simply that

when I mastered the knack, I wanted to use it for my

own purposes. At nineteen, I quit the Military and,

well, got . . . married, and started writing seriously.

Three years later my first book came out." She shrug-

ged, smiled. "For anything after that, read the poems.

' It's all there."

"And on the worlds of five galaxies, now, people

delve your imagery and meaning for the answers to the

riddles of greatness, love, and isolation." The three

words jumped his sentence like vagabonds on a boxcar.

She was before him, and was great; here, divorced from

. the military, he felt desperately isolated and he was

desperately in—No!

That was impossible and ridiculous and too simple to

i- explain what coursed and pulsed behind his eyes, inside

his hands. "Another drink?" Automatic defense. But

she will take it for automatic politeness. Will she? The

bartender came, left.

n

BABEL-17

"The worlds of five galaxies," she repeated.

"That's so strange. I'm only twenty-six." Her eyes

fixed somewhere behind the mirror. She was only half

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through her first drink.

"By the time Keats was your age, he was dead."

She shrugged. * This is an odd epoch. It takes heroes

very suddenly, very young, then drops them as

quickly."

He nodded, recalling half a dozen singers, actors,

even writers in their late teens or early twenties who had

been named genius for a year, two, three, only to

disappear. Her reputation was only a phenomenon of

three years duration.

"I'm part of my times," she said. "I'd like to

transcend my times, but the times themselves have a

good deal to do with who I am." Her hand retreated

across the mahogany from her glass.k 'You in Military,

it must be much the same." She raised her head. "Have

I given you what you want?"

He nodded. It was easier to lie with a gesture than a

word.

"Good. Now, GeneralForester, what's Babel-17?''

He looked around for the bartender, but a glow

brought his eyes back to her face—the glow was simply

her smile, but from the comer of his eye he had actually

mistaken it for a light. "Here," she said, pushing her

second drink, untouched, to him.' *I won't finish this. *'

He took it, sipped. "The Invasion, Miss Wong , . .

it's got to be involved with the Invasion."

She leaned on one arm, listening with narrowing

eyes.

"It started with a series of accidents—well, at first

they seemed like accidents. Now we're sure it's sabo-

tage. They've occurred all over the Alliance regularly

12

-"• BABEL-17

since December'68. Some on warships, some in Space

Navy Yards, usually involving the failure of some

important equipment. Twice, explosions have caused

the death of important officials. Several times these

'accidents' have happened in industrial plants produc-

ing essential war products."

"What connects all these 'accidents,' other than that

they touched on the war? With our economy working

this way, it would be difficult for any major industrial

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accident not to affect the war."

"The thing that connects them all. Miss Wong, is

Babel-17."

He watched her finish her drink and set the glass

precisely on the wet circle.

"Just before, during, and immediately after each

accident, the area is flooded with radio exchanges back

and forth from indefinite sources; most of them only

have a carrying power of a couple of hundred yards.

But there are occasional bursts through hyperstatic

,^ channels that blanket a few lightyears. We have tran-

i: scribed the stuff during the last three 'accidents' and

;| - given it the working title Babel-17. Now. Does that tell

^ you anything you can use?"

-y. "Yes. There's a good chance you're receiving radio

^instructions for the sabotage back and forth between

^ 'whatever is directing the 'accidents'—"

;-:' 'l—But we can't find a thing!" Exasperation struck.

'I4 "There's nothing but that blasted gobbledy-gook, pip-

1|itng away at double speed! Finally someone noticed

||iE:ertain repetitions in the pattern that suggested a code.

gpryptography seemed to think it was a good lead but

couldn't crack it for a month; so they called you."

5 As he talked, he watched her think. Now she said,

^General Forester, I'd like the original monitors of

13

BABEL-17

these radio exchanges, plus a thorough report, second

by second if it's available, of those accidents timed to

the tapes."

"I don't know if—"

"If you don't have such a report, make one during

the next'accident' that occurs. If this radio garbage is a

conversation, I have to be able to follow what's being

talked about. You may not have noticed, but, in the

copy Cryptography gave me, there was no distinction

as to which voice was which. In short, what I'm work-

ing with now is a transcription of a highly technical

exchange run together without punctuation, or even

word breaks,"

"I can probably get you everything you want except

the original recordings—''

"You have to. I must make my own transcription,

carefully, and on my own equipment."

"We'll make a new one to your specifications."

She shook her head. "I have to do it myself, or I

can't promise a thing. There's the whole problem of

phonemic and allophonic distinctions. Your people

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didn't even realize it was a language, so it didn't occur

to them—"

Now he interrupted her. "What sort of distinc-

tions?"

"You know the way some Orientals confuse the

sounds of R and L when they speak a Western lan-

"guage? That's because R and L in many Eastern lan-

guages are allophones, that is, considered the same

sound, written and even heard the same—just like the

th at the beginning of they and at the beginning of

theater."

"What's different about the sound of heater and

fAey?"

14

BABEL-17

"Say them again and listen. One's voiced and the

other's unvoiced. They're as distinct as V and F; only

they're allophones in English and you're used to hear-

ing them as if they were the same phoneme."

"Oh."

"But you see the problem a 'foreigner' has transcrib-

ing a language he doesn't speak; he may come out with

too many distinctions of sound, or not enough."

"How do you propose to do it?"

"By what I know about the sound systems of a lot of

other languages and by feel."

"The 'knack' again?"

She smiled. "I suppose."

She waited for him to grant approval. What wouldn't

he have granted her? For a moment he had been dis-

tracted by her voice through subtleties of sound. "Of

course, Miss Wong," he said, "you're our expert.

Come to Cryptography tomorrow and you can have

access to whatever you need."

"Thank you. General Forester. I'll bring my official

report in then."

He stood in the static beam of her smile. I must go

now, he thought desperately. Oh, let me say something

to her. "Fine, Miss Wong. I'll speak to you then."

Something more, something—

He wrenched his body away (I must turn from her)

say one thing more, thank you, be you, love you. He

walked to the door, his thoughts quieting: who is she?

^ Oh, the things that should have been said. I have been

brusque, military, efficient. But the luxuriance of

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Samuel R. Delaney - Babel - 17

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