Babel-17 (13 page)

"Will you come with me, Rydra Wong?"

Jebel, bolstered and silver-haired, stood in the dark opening.

"The rest of my crew," Rydra said, "are they all right?"

"They are all in other wards. If you wish to see them—"

"Are they all right?"

Jebel nodded.

Rydra thumped Carlos on his head. "I'll see you later," she whispered.

The commons was arched and balconied, the walls dull as rock. The expanses were hung with green and crimson zodiac signs or representations of battles. And the stars—at first, she thought the light flecked void beyond the gallery columns was an actual view-port; but it was only a great, hundred-foot long projection of the night beyond their ship.

Men and women sat and talked around wooden tables, or lounged by the walls. Down a broad set of steps was a wide counter filled with food and pitchers. The opening hung with pots, pans, and platters, and behind it she saw the aluminum and white recess of the galley where aproned men and women prepared dinner.

The company turned when they entered. Those nearest touched their foreheads in salute. She followed Jebel to the raised steps and walked to the cushioned benches on the top.

The griffin man came scurrying up, "Master, this is she?"

Jebel turned to Rydra, his rocky face softening. "This is my amusement, my distraction, my ease of ire. Captain Wong, in him I keep the sense of humor that all around will tell you I lack. Hey, Klik, leap up and straighten the seats for conference."

The feathered head ducked brightly, black eye winking, and Klik whacked the cushions puffy. A moment later Jebel and Rydra sank into them.

"Jebel," asked Rydra, "what route does your ship run?"

"We stay in the Specelli Snap." He pushed his cape back from his three-knobbed shoulder. "What was your original position before you were caught in the noval tide?"

"We . . . took off from the War Yards at Armsedge."

Jebel nodded. "You are fortunate. Most shadow-ships would have left you to emerge in the nova when your generators gave out. It would have been a rather final discorporation.

"I guess so," Rydra felt her stomach sink at the memory. Then she asked, "Shadow-ships?"

"Yes. That's Jebel Tarik."

"I'm afraid I don't know what a shadow-ship is."

Jebel laughed, a soft, rough sound in the back of his throat. "Perhaps it's just as well. I hope you never have occasion to wish I had not told you."

"Go ahead," Rydra said. "I'm listening."

"The Specelli Snap is radio-dense. A ship, even a mountain like Tarik, over any long-range is undetectable. It also runs across the stasis side of Cancer."

"That galaxy lies under the Invaders," Rydra said, with conditioned apprehension.

"The Snap is the boundary along Cancer's edge. We . . . patrol the area and keep the Invader ships ... in their place."

Rydra watched the hesitation in his face. "But not officially?"

Again he laughed. "How could we, Captain Wong?" He stroked a ruff of feathers between Klik's shoulder blades. The jester arched his back. "Even official warships cannot receive their orders and directions in the Snap because of the radio-density. So Administrative Alliance Headquarters is lenient with us. We do our job well; they look the other way. They cannot give us orders; neither can they supply us with weapons or provisions. Therefore we ignore certain salvage conventions and capture regulations. Stellar-men call us looters." He searched her for a reaction. "We are staunch defenders of the Alliance, Captain Wong, but . . ." He raised his hand, made a fist and brought the fist against his belly. "But if we are hungry, and no Invader ship has come by—well, we take what comes past."

"I see," Rydra said. “Do I understand I am taken?'' She recalled the Baron, the hesitant spring implicit in his lean figure.

Jebel's fingers opened on his stomach. "Do I look hungry?"

Rydra grinned. "You look very well fed."

He nodded. "This has been a prosperous month. Were it not, we would not be sitting together so amiably. You are our guests for now."

"Then you will help us repair the burned-out generators --"

Jebel raised his hand again, signaling her to halt. " -- for now." he repeated.

Rydra had moved forward on her seat; she sat back again.

Jebel spoke to Klik: "Bring the books." The jester stepped quickly away and delved into a stand beside the couches. "We live dangerously," Jebel went on, "Perhaps that is why we live well. We are civilized— when we have time. The name of your ship convinced

me to heed the Butcher's suggestion to hook you out. Here on the Rim we are seldom visited by a Bard." Rydra smiled as politely as she could at the pun.

Klik returned with three volumes. The covers were black with silver edging. Jebel held them up. "My favorite is the second. I was particularly struck with the long narrative Exiles in Mist. You tell me you have never heard of shadowships, yet you do know the feelings 'that loop night to bind you"—that is the line, isn't it? I confess, your third book I do not understand. But there are many references and humorous allusions to current events. We here are out of the mainstream." He shrugged. "We . . . salvaged the first from the collection of the captain of an Invader transport tramp that had wandered off course. The second—well, it came from an Alliance destroyer. I believe there's an inscription on the inside cover." He opened it and read:

" 'For Joey on his first flight; she says so well what I have always wanted to say so much. With so much, much love, Lenia.' " He closed the cover. "Touching. The third I only acquired a month ago. I will read it several times more before I speak of it to you again. I am astounded at the coincidence that brings us together." He placed the books in his lap. "How long has the third one been out?"

'A little under a year."

"There is a fourth?"

She shook her head.

"May I inquire what literary work you are engaged in now?"

“Now, nothing. I've done some short poems that my publisher wants to put out in a collection, but I want to wait until I have another large, sustained work to balance them."

Jebel nodded. "I see. But your reticence deprives us of great pleasure. Should you be moved to write, I will be honored. At meals we have music, some dramatic or comic entertainment, directed by clever Klik. If you would give us prologue or epilogue with what fancy you choose, you will have an appreciative audience." He extended his brown, hard hand. Appreciation is not a warm feeling, Rydra realized, but cool, and makes your back relax at the same time that you smile. She took his hand.

"Thank you, Jebel," she said.

"I thank you," Jebel returned. "Having your good will, I shall release your crew. They are free to wander Tarik as my own men are." His brown gaze shifted and she released his hand. "The Butcher." He nodded and she turned.

The convict who had been with him on the ramp now stood on the step below.

"What was that blot that lay toward Rigel?" Jebel asked.

"Alliance running. Invader tracking."

Jebel’s face furrowed, then relaxed. "No, let them both pass. We eat well enough this month. Why upset our guests with violence? This is Rydra—"

The Butcher brought his right fist cracking into his left palm. People below turned. She jumped at the sound and with her eyes she tried to strip meaning from the faintly quivering muscle, the fixed, full-lipped face: lancing but inarticulate hostility; an outrage at 
stillness, a fear of motion halted, safely in silence furious with movement—

Now Jebel spoke again, voice lower, slower, harsh. “You're right. But what whole man is not of two minds on any matter of moment, eh. Captain Wong?" He rose- "Butcher, pull us closer to their trajectory. Are they an hour out? Good. We will watch a while, then trounce"—he paused and smiled at Rydra—"the Invaders."

The Butcher's hands came apart, and Rydra saw relief (or release) ease his arms. He breathed again.

"Ready Tarik, and I will escort our guest to where she may watch."

Without response, the Butcher strode to the bottom of the steps. Those nearest had overheard and the information saturated the room. Men and women rose from their benches. One upset his drinking horn. Rydra saw the girl who had served them in the infirmary run with a towel to sop the drink.

At the head of the gallery stairs she looked over the balcony rail at the commons below, empty now.

"Come," Jebel motioned her through the columns toward the darkness and the stars. “The Alliance ship is coming through there." He pointed to a bluish cloud. "We have equipment that can penetrate a good deal of this mist, but I doubt the Alliance ship even knows it is being tracked by Invaders." He moved to a desk and pressed a raised disk. Two dots of light flashed in the mist. "Red for Invaders," Jebel explained. "Blue for Alliance. Our little spider-boats will be yellow. You can follow the progress of the encounter from here. All our sensory evaluations and sensory perceptors and navigators remain on Tarik and direct the major strategy by remote control, so formations remain consistent. But within a limited range, each spider-boat battles for itself. It's fine sport for the men."

"What sort of ships are these you hunt?" She was amused that the slight archaic tone that perfused Jebel’s speech had begun to affect hers.

"The Alliance ship is a military supply ship. The Invader is tracking her with a small destroyer."

"How far apart are they?"

"They should engage each other in about twenty minutes."

"And you are going to wait sixty minutes before you trounce the Invaders?"

Jebel smiled. "A supply ship doesn't have much chance against a destroyer."

“I know." She could see him waiting, behind the smile, for her to object. She looked for objection in herself, but it was blocked by a clot of tiny singing sounds on an area of her tongue smaller than a coin:

Babel-17. They defined a concept of exactingly necessary expedient curiosity that became in any other language a clumsy string of polysyllables. "I've never watched a stellar skirmish," she said.

"I would have you come in my flagship, but I know that the little danger there is danger enough, From here you can follow the whole battle much more clearly."

Excitement caught her up. "I'd like to go with you." She hoped he might change his mind.

"Stay here," Jebel said. "The Butcher rides with me this time. Here's a sensory helmet if you wish to view the stasis currents. Though with combat weapons, there's so much electromagnetic confusion I doubt that even a reduction would mean much." A run of lights flashed across the desk top. “Excuse me. I go to review my men and check my cruiser." He bowed shortly. "Your crew has revived. They will be directed up here and you may explain their status as my guests however you see fit."

As Jebel walked to the steps, she looked back to the glittering view-screen and a few moments later thought: What an amazing graveyard they have on this hulk; it must take fifty discorporate souls to do all the sensory reading for Tarik and its spider-boats—in 
Basque again. She looked back and saw the translucent shapes of her Eye, Ear, and Nose across the gallery.

"Am I glad to see you!" she said. “I didn't know whether Tarik had discorporate facilities!"

"Does it!" came the Basque response. "We'll take you on a trip through the Underworld here, Captain. They treat you like the lords of Hades."

From the speaker came Jebel 's voice “Hear this: the strategy is Asylum. Asylum. Repeat a third time, Asylum. Inmates gather to face Caesar. Psychotics ready at the K-ward gate. Neurotics gather before the R-ward gate. Criminally insane prepare for discharge at the T-ward gate. All right, drop your straitjackets."

At the bottom of the hundred-foot screen appeared three groups of yellow lights—the three groups of spiderboats that would attack the Invader once it had overtaken the Alliance supply ship, "Neurotics advance. Maintain contact to avoid separation anxiety."

The middle group began to move slowly forward. On the underspeakers now, punctuated with static, Rydra heard lower voices as the men began to report back to the Navigators on Tarik:

Keep us on course, now, Kippi, and don' t get shook. Sure thing. Hawk, will you get your reports back on time!

Ease up. My caper-unit keeps sticking. Who told you to leave without getting overhauled?

Come on, ladies, be kind to us for once. Hey, Pigfoot, you want to be lobbed in high or low? Low, hard, and fast. Don't hang me up. You just get your reports in, honeybunch.

Over the main speaker Jebel said: "The Hunter and the Hunted have engaged—“ The red light and the blue light started blinking on the screen. Calli, Ron, and Molly a came from the head of the steps.

"What's going. . .?" Calli started, but silenced at a gesture from Rydra.

"That red light's an Invader ship. We're attacking it in a few moments. We're the yellow lights down here." She left the explanation at that. "Good luck, us," Mollya said, dryly.

In five minutes there was only the red light left. By now Brass had clanked up the steps to join them. Jebel announced: "The Hunter has become the Hunted. Let the criminally-insane schiz out." The yellow group on the left started forward, spreading apart.