Babel-17 (21 page)

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

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."