by Damon Knight
For answer, he got a picture of a twilit depthless space where crested little creatures like the Hooligan walked among tall fungoid growths that looked like tiers of doughnuts on a stick. Another planet? Cavanaugh touched the disk and made the viewpoint tilt upward; the Hooligan obligingly filled in more of the featureless violet haze. No sun, no moon, no stars.
Cavanaugh tried again: a picture of himself, standing on the globe of the earth and peering at the night sky. Suddenly a tiny Hooligan-figure appeared, uncomfortably perched on a star.
The Hooligan countered with a picture that left Cavanaugh more confused than before. There were two globes, swinging in emptiness. One was solid-looking, and standing on it was a tiny man-shape; the other was violet mist, with the tubby, crested figure of a Hooligan inside it. The two spheres revolved very slowly around each other, coming a little nearer with each circuit, while the solid globe flickered light-dark, light-dark. Eventually they touched, clung, and the Hooligan-figure darted across. The solid globe flickered once more, the Hooligan shot back to the misty one, and the spheres separated, moving very gradually apart as they circled.
Cavanaugh gave up.
The Hooligan, after waiting a moment to be sure that Cavanaugh had no more questions, made his deepest bow to date and conjured up a final diamond: a beauty, larger than all but one or two that Cavanaugh already had.
Picture of Cavanaugh accepting the diamond and handing over something blurred: What for?
Picture of the Hooligan rejecting the blur: For nothing. Picture of the Hooligan patting Cavanaugh’s sleeve: For friendship.
Feeling ashamed of himself, Cavanaugh got a bottle of May wine and two glasses out of the bookshelf. He explained to the Hooligan, via the disk, what the stuff was and—sketchily—what it was supposed to do to you.
This was a mistake.
The Hooligan, beaming enormously between sips, drank the wine with every sign of enjoyment. Then, with an impressive flourish, he put a smallish green and white doodad on the table. It had a green crystalline base with a slender knob-tipped metal shaft sprouting upright from the centre of it. That was all.
Feeling abnormally open-minded and expectant, Cavanaugh studied the Hooligan’s pictograph explanation. The gadget, apparently, was the Hooligan equivalent of alcoholic beverages. (Picture of Cavanaugh and the Hooligan, with enormous smiles on their faces, while coloured lights flashed on and off inside their transparent skulls.) He nodded when the little man glanced at him for permission. With one thick finger, the Hooligan carefully tapped the doodad’s projecting knob. Knob and shaft vibrated rapidly.
Cavanaugh had the odd sensation that someone was stirring his brains with a swizzle stick. It tickled. It was invigorating.
It was delightful. “Ha!” he said.
“Kho!” said the Hooligan, grinning happily. He picked up the doodad, put it away—Cavanaugh almost saw where it went—and stood up. Cavanaugh accompanied him to the door. He patted Cavanaugh’s sleeve; Cavanaugh pumped his hand. Then, cheerfully bouncing three steps at a time, he disappeared down the stairwell.
From the window, a few minutes later, Cavanaugh saw him riding by—atop a Second Avenue bus.
II
The euphoric feeling diminished after a few minutes, leaving Cavanaugh in a relaxed but bewildered state of mind. To reassure, himself, he emptied his bulging trousers pockets onto the table. Diamonds—solid, cool, sharp-edged, glowingly beautiful. He counted them; there were twenty-seven, ranging from over a hundred carats to about thirty; worth, altogether—how much?
Steady, he warned himself. There may be a catch in it yet. The thing to do was to get downtown to an appraiser’s and find out. Conveniently, he knew where there was one—in the French Building, across the hall from Patriotic Comics. He picked out two of the stones, a big one and a little one, and zipped them into the inner compartment of his wallet. Jittering a little with excitement, he dumped the rest into a paper bag and hid them under the kitchen sink.
A yellow cab was cruising down the avenue. Cavanaugh hailed it and got in. “Forty-fifth and Fifth,” he said.
“Boo?” said the driver, twisting to look at him.
Cavanaugh glowered. “Forty-fifth Street,” he said distinctly, “and Fifth Avenue. Let’s go.”
“Zawss,” said the driver, pushing his cap up, “owuh kelg trace wooj’l, fook. Bnog nood ig ye nolik?”
Cavanaugh got out of the cab. “Pokuthchowig’w!” said the driver, and zoomed away, grinding his gears.
Jaw unhinged, Cavanaugh stared after him. He felt his ears getting hot. “Why didn’t I get his licence number?” he said aloud. “Why didn’t I stay upstairs where it was safe? Why do I live in this idiotic goddamn city?”
He stepped back onto the sidewalk. “Lowly, badny?” said a voice in his ear.
Cavanaugh whirled. It was an urchin with a newspaper in his hand, a stack of them under his arm. “Will you kindly mind your own business?” Cavanaugh said. He turned, took two steps toward the corner, then froze, faced around again, and marched back.
It was as he had thought: the headline of the paper in the boy’s hand read, MOTN LNIUL IMAP QYFRAT.
The name of the paper, which otherwise looked like the News, was Pionu Vajl.
The newsboy was backing away from him, with a wary look in his eyes.
“Wait,” said Cavanaugh hastily. He clutched in his pocket for change, found none, and got a bill out of his wallet with trembling fingers. He thrust it at the child. “I’ll take a paper.”
The boy took the bill, glanced at it, threw it on the pavement at Cavanaugh’s feet, and ran like sixty.
Cavanaugh picked up the bill. In each corner of it was a large figure 4. Over the familiar engraving of G. Washington were the words FRA EVOFAP LFIFAL YK IQATOZI. Under it, the legend read, YVA PYNNIT.
He clutched his collar; which was throttling him. That vibrating gadget—But that couldn’t be it; it was the world that was scrambled, not Cavanaugh. And that was impossible, because…
A dirty little man in a derby rushed at him, grabbing for his lapels “Poz’k,” he gabbled, “fend gihekn, fend gihekn? Fwuz eeb l’ mwukd sahtz’kn?”
Cavanaugh pushed him away and retreated.
The little man burst into tears. “FWUH!” he wailed. “Fwuh vekn r’ NAHP shaoo?”
Cavanaugh stopped thinking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that a crosstown bus had just pulled up down at the end of the block. He ran for it.
The red-faced driver was half out of his seat, bellowing gibberish at a fat woman who was shrieking back at him, brandishing a dangerous parasol. Beyond them the narrow aisle was packed full of bewildered faces, annoyed faces, shouting faces. The air bristled with dislocated consonants.
Farther down, somebody shrieked and hammered on the rear door. Cursing, the driver turned around to open it. The fat woman seized this opportunity to clout him on the head, and when the resulting melee was over, Cavanaugh found himself halfway down the bus, well wedged in, without having paid his fare.
The bus moved. Hysterical passengers got off at every stop, but the ones that crowded on were in no better shape.
Nobody, Cavanaugh realized numbly, could understand anybody; nobody could read anything written.
The din was increasing; Cavanaugh could hear the driver’s bellowing voice getting steadily hoarser and weaker. Up ahead, horns were blowing furiously. Concentrating with the greatest difficulty, he managed: How far? That was the crucial point—had whatever it was happened simultaneously all over New York… or all over the world? Or, horrid thought, was it a sort of infection that he was carrying with him?
He had to find out.
The traffic got thicker. At Sixth Avenue the bus, which had been moving by inches, stopped altogether and the doors slammed open. Peering forward, Cavanaugh saw the driver climb down, hurl his uniform cap to the street and disappear, shoulders hunched, into the crowd.
Cavanaugh got out and walked west into bedlam. Auto horns were howling, siren
s shrieking; there was a fight every fifteen yards and a cop for every tenth fight. After a while it became obvious that he would never get to Broadway; he battled his way back to Sixth and turned south.
The loudspeaker over a record store was blaring a song Cavanaugh knew and detested; but instead of the all-too-familiar words, the raucous female voice was chanting:
“Kee—ee tho—iv i—if zegmlit Podn mawgeth oo-oou-gaatch…”
It sounded just as good.
The street sign directly ahead of him read, 13FR, LF. Even the numbers were cockeyed.
Cavanaugh’s head hurt. He went into a bar.
It was well patronized. Nobody in a white coat was in evidence, but about a third of the customers were behind the bar, serving the rest—a bottle at a time.
Cavanaugh elbowed his way into the first tier and hesitated between two bottles labelled respectively CIF 05 and ZITLFIOTL. Neither sounded particularly appetizing, but the amber liquid in each looked to be what he needed. He settled for the Zitlfiotl. After his second swallow, feeling more alert, he scanned the backbar and located the radio.
It was, he found when he reached it, already turned on, but nothing was coming out but a power hum. He twiddled with the knobs. At the right of the dial—which was eccentrically numbered from 77 to 408—he picked up an orchestra playing Pictures at an Exhibition; otherwise, nothing.
That, he decided, settled it. WQXR, with an all-music programme, was on the air; the others were off. That meant that speech was coming out double-talk, not only New York and New Jersey broadcasts, but in network programmes from the West Coast. Or—wait a minute—even if a radio performer in Hollywood were able to speak straight English, wouldn’t it be nonsense to an engineer in Manhattan?
This led him by easy stages to the next problem. Selecting an unfrequented table in the rear, and carrying his Zitlfiotl with him, he seated himself with circumspection and carefully laid out on the table the following important articles:
A partially used envelope.
A fountain pen.
A one-dollar bill.
His social-security card.
A salvaged newspaper.
Now, the question was, did any order remain in the patterns of human speech, or was all reduced to utter chaos? Scientific method, encouraged by Zitlfiotl, would discover the answer.
As a preliminary gambit, he wrote the letters of the alphabet, in a severely vertical line, on the unused surface of the envelope.
Next, after reflection, he copied down the text of the one-dollar bill. Thusly:
FRA EVOFAP LFIFAL YK IQATOZI YVA PYNNIT
Under each line, letter by letter, he added what ought to be the text of the one-dollar bill.
This gave him fifteen letters, which he wrote down in their proper places opposite the already established letters of the alphabet. Following the identical procedure with the Pionu Vajl, or Daily News, and, with his own signature, which appeared on the card as Nnyup Ziciviemr, gave him four letters more, with the result:
A E H O I V N
B I A P D W
C V J W Q M X
D K F R H Y O
E U L S S Z C
F T M G T R
G N L U Y
Now came the supreme test. He copied down the Vajl’s puzzling headline and transliterated it according to his findmgs:
MOTN LNIUL
GIRL SLAYS
IMAP QYFRAT
AGED MOTHER
A triumphant success. He could now communicate.
The point is, he told himself lucidly, when I think I am saying “Listen to me,” in actuality I am saying” Nolfav fy qa,” and this is why nobody understands anyone else. And therefore, if I were to think I am saying “Nolfav fy qa,” I would actually be saying “Listen to me.” And in this way will we build the Revolution.
But it didn’t work.
Some time later he found himself in a disused classroom with an unruly student body consisting of three men with spectacles and beards and a woman with hair in her eyes; he was attempting to teach them by means of blackboard exercises a new alphabet which began, E, blank, V, blank, U, T, blank. The blanks, he explained, were most important.
At a later period he was standing on the first landing of the left-hand staircase in the lobby of the Forty-second Street Branch of the New York Public Library shouting to an assembled crowd, over and over, “Myp-piqvap opoyfl! Myppiqvap opoyfl!”
And at a still later time he woke up, cold sober, leaning on an imitation-marble-topped table in a partially wrecked cafeteria. Sunlight was slanting through the plate glass onto the wall to his left; it must be either late afternoon or early morning.
Cavanaugh groaned. He had gone into that bar, he remembered, because his head hurt: about like taking a mickey finn for nausea.
And as for the rest of it—before and after… how much of that had he imagined?
He raised his head and stared hopefully at the lettering on the windows. Even back-to-front he could tell that it wasn’t in English. The first letter was a Z.
He groaned again and propped his chin up with his hands, carefully, so as not to slosh. He tried to stay that way, not moving, not looking, not noticing, but eventually an insistent thought brought him upright again.
How long?
How long was this going to last? How long could it last before the whole world went to hell in a hand basket? Not very long.
Without language, how could you buy anything, sell anything, order anything? And if you could, what would you use for money—four-dollar bills marked YVA PYNNIT?
… Or, he amended bitterly, something equally outlandish.
Because that was the point he had overlooked a few drunken hours ago—everybody’s alphabet was different. To Cavanaugh, YVAPYNNIT. To somebody else, AGUMATTEK,or ENYZEBBAL, or…
Twenty-six letters in the alphabet. Possible combinations, 26 × 25 × 24 × 23 × 22 and so on down to × 1… figure roughly one decimal place for each operation…
Something in the septillions.
Not as many if vowels were traded for vowels, consonants for consonants, as seemed to have happened in his case, but still plenty. More than the number of people alive in the world.
That was for the written word. For speech, he realized suddenly, it would be just about twenty-five decimal places worse. Not letters, phonemes—forty of them in ordinary spoken English.
A swizzle stick that stirred up your brains—that switched the reflex arcs around at random, connecting the receptor pattern for K with the response pattern for H, or D or anything…
Cavanaugh traced a letter with his forefinger on the tabletop, frowning at it. Hadn’t he always made an A like that—a vertical stroke with three horizontal ones?
But, damn it, that was the fiendish thing about it—memory didn’t mean a thing, because all the memories were still there but they were scrambled. As if you had ripped out all the connections in a telephone switchboard and put them back differently.
Of course: it had to be that way—nobody had gone around repainting all the signs or reprinting all the newspapers or forging a phoney signature on Cavanaugh’s social-security 94 t card. That half-circle first letter of his name, even though it looked like a Z to him, was still a C.
Or was it? If a tree falls with nobody to hear it, is there a sound? And if beauty is in the eye of the beholder, then which way is up? Or, rather, thought Cavanaugh, repressing a tendency toward hysteria, which way is out?
First things first.
The Hooligan.
He came from some place that wasn’t exactly a place, across a distance that wasn’t exactly a distance. But it must be a difficult journey, because there was no record of any previous appearances of little cockatoo-crested art collectors…
He bought the local handicrafts with stones that were priceless on this planet, and very likely dirt-common where he came from. Pretty beads for the natives. In politeness, you offered him a drink. And being polite right back at you, he gave you a shot of swizzle-
sticks-in-the-head.
Firewater. A mild stimulant to the Hooligan, hell on wheels to the aborigines. Instead of getting two people mildly confused, it turned a whole planet pole over equator… and, communicating by pictures as he did, it was probable that the Hooligan still didn’t know what damage he had done. He would finish his tour and go happily back home with his prizes, and then a few thousand years from now, maybe, when the human race had put itself together again into halt-acre nations and two-for-a-nickel empires, another Hooligan would come along…
Cavanaugh upset his chair.
Icicles were forming along his spine.
This wasn’t the first time. It had happened at least once before, a few thousand years ago, in the valley of the Euphrates.
Not Bedlam—Babel.
III
The sun was quartering down toward the west, gilding a deserted Forty-second Street with the heartbreaking false promise of spring in New York. Leaning dizzily against the door frame, Cavanaugh saw broken display windows and dark interiors. He heard a confused roaring from somewhere uptown, but the few people who passed him were silent, bewildered.
There was a nasty wreck at the corner of Seventh Avenue, and another at Eighth; that accounted, he saw with relief, for the lack of traffic in this block. Holding the top of his head down with one hand, he scuttled across the street and dived into the black maw of the IRT subway.
The arcade and the station itself were empty, echoing. Nobody behind the newsstands, nobody playing the pinball machines, nobody in the change booth. Swallowing hard, Cavanaugh went through the open gate and clattered down the stairs to the downtown platform.
A train was standing in the express lane, doors open, lights burning, motor chuffing quietly. Cavanaugh ran down to the first car and went across the vestibule to the motorman’s cubicle.
The control lever was missing.
Cursing, Cavanaugh climbed back to the street. He had to find the Hooligan; he had one chance in a million of doing it, and one wasted minute now might be the one minute that mattered.