Kispitorian called his first and most influential book Tower of Confusion, using
the widespread legend of the Tower of Babble as an illustration. He supposed that
this story might have originated in that pre-Empire period, probably among the
rootless traders roaming from planet to planet, who had to deal on a practical level
with the fact that no two worlds spoke the same language. These traders had
preserved a tradition that when humanity lived on one planet, they all spoke the
same language. They explained the linguistic confusion of their own time by
recounting the tale of a great leader who built the first "tower," or starship, to
raise mankind up into heaven. According to the story, "God" punished these upstart
people by confusing their tongues, which forced them to disperse among the different
worlds. The story presented the confusion of tongues as the cause of the dispersal
instead of its result, but cause-reversal was a commonly recognized feature of myth.
Clearly this legend preserved a historical fact.
So far, Kispitorian's work was perfectly acceptable to most scientists. But in his
forties he began to go off on wild tangents. Using controversial algorithms-- on
calculators with a suspiciously high level of processing power-- he began to tear
apart Galactic Standard itself, showing that many words revealed completely separate
phonetic traditions, incompatible with the mainstream of the language. They could
not comfortably have evolved within a population that regularly spoke either
Standard or its primary Ancestor language. Furthermore, there were many words with
clearly related meanings that showed they had once diverged according to standard
linguistic patterns and then were brought together later, with different meanings or
implications. But the time scale implied by the degree of change was far too great
to be accounted for in the period between humanity's first settlement of space and
the formation of the Empire. Obviously, claimed Kispitorian, there had been many
different languages on the planet of origin; Galactic Standard was the first
universal human language. Throughout all human history, separation of language had
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been a fact of life; only the Empire had had the pervasive power to unify speech.
After that, Kispitorian was written off as a fool, of course-- his own Tower of
Babble interpretation was now used against him as if an interesting illustration had
now become a central argument. He very narrowly escaped execution as a separatist,
in fact, since there was an unmistakable tone of regret in his writing about the
loss of linguistic diversity. The Imperium did succeed in cutting off all his
funding and jailing him for a while because he had been using a calculator with an
illegal level of memory and processing power. Leyel suspected that Kispitorian got
off easy at that-- working with language as he did, getting the results he got, he
might well have developed a calculator so intelligent that it could understand and
produce human speech, which, if discovered, would have meant either the death
penalty or a lynching.
No matter now. Kispitorian insisted to the end that his work was pure science,
making no value judgments on whether the Empire's linguistic unity was a Good Thing
or not. He was merely reporting that the natural condition of humanity was to speak
many different languages. And Leyel believed that he was right.
Leyel could not help but feel that by combining Kispitorian's language studies
with Magolissian's work with language-using primates he could come up with something
important. But what was the connection? The primates had never developed their own
languages-- they only learned nouns and verbs presented to them by humans. So they
could hardly have developed diversity of language. What connection could there be?
Why would diversity ever have developed? Could it have something to do with why
humans became human?
The primates used only a tiny subset of Standard. For that matter, so did most
people-- most of the two million words in Standard were used only by a few
professionals who actually needed them, while the common vocabulary of humans
throughout the Galaxy consisted of a few thousand words.
Oddly, though, it was that small subset of Standard that was the most susceptible
to change. Highly esoteric scientific or technical papers written in 2000 G.E. were
still easily readable. Slangy, colloquial passages in fiction, especially in
dialogue, became almost unintelligible within five hundred years. The language
shared by the most different communities was the language that changed the most. But
over time, that mainstream language always changed together. It made no sense, then,
for there ever to be linguistic diversity. Language changed most when it was most
unified. Therefore when people were most divided, their language should remain most
similar.
Never mind, Leyel. You're out of your discipline. Any competent linguist would
know the answer to that.
But Leyel knew that wasn't likely to be true. People immersed in one discipline
rarely questioned the axioms of their profession. Linguists all took for granted the
fact that the language of an isolated population is invariably more archaic, less
susceptible to change. Did they understand why?
Leyel got up from his chair. His eyes were tired from staring into the lector. His
knees and back ached from staying so long in the same position. He wanted to lie
down, but knew that if he did, he'd fall asleep. The curse of getting old-- he could
fall asleep so easily, yet could never stay asleep long enough to feel well rested.
He didn't want to sleep now, though. He wanted to think.
No, that wasn't it. He wanted to talk. That's how his best and clearest ideas
always came, under the pressure of conversation, when someone else's questions and
arguments forced him to think sharply. To make connections, invent explanations. In
a contest with another person, his adrenaline flowed, his brain made connections
that would never otherwise be made.
Where was Deet? In years past, he would have been talking this through with Deet
all day. All week. She would know as much about his research as he did, and would
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constantly say "Have you thought of this?" or "How can you possibly think that!" And
he would have been making the same challenges to her work. In the old days.
But these weren't the old days. She didn't need him any more-- she had her friends
on the library staff. Nothing wrong with that, probably. After all, she wasn't
thinking now, she was putting old thoughts into practice. She needed them, not him.
But he still needed her. Did she ever think of that? I might as well have gone to
Terminus-- damn Hari for refusing to let me go. I stayed for Deet's sake, and yet I
don't have her after all, not when I need her. How dare Hari decide what was right
for Leyel Forska!
Only Hari hadn't decided, had he? He would have let Leyel go without Deet. And
Leyel hadn't stayed with Deet so she could help him, with his research. He had
stayed with her because... bec
ause...
He couldn't remember why. Love, of course. But he couldn't think why that had been
so important to him. It wasn't important to her. Her idea of love these days was to
urge him to come to the library. "You can do your research there. We could be
together more during the days."
The message was clear. The only way Leyel could remain part of Deet's life was if
he became part of her new "family" at the library. Well, she could forget that idea.
If she chose to get swallowed up in that place, fine. If she chose to leave him for
a bunch of indexers and cataloguers-- fine. Fine.
No. It wasn't fine. He wanted to talk to her. Right now, at this moment, he wanted
to tell her what he was thinking, wanted her to question him and argue with him
until she made him come up with an answer, or lots of answers. He needed her to see
what he wasn't seeing. He needed her a lot more than they needed her.
He was out amid the thick pedestrian traffic of Maslo Boulevard before he realized
that this was the first time since Hari's funeral that he'd ventured beyond the
immediate neighborhood of his apartment. It was the first time in months that he'd
had anyplace to go. That's what I'm doing here, he thought. I just need a change of
scenery, a sense of destination. That's the only reason I'm heading to the library.
All that emotional nonsense back in the apartment, that was just my unconscious
strategy for making myself get out among people again.
Leyel was almost cheerful when he got to the Imperial Library. He had been there
many times over the years, but always for receptions or other public events-- having
records by cable. Other people-- students, professors from poorer schools, lay
readers-- they actually had to come here to read. But that meant that they knew
their way around the building. Except for flnding the major lecture halls and
reception rooms, Leyel hadn't the faintest idea where anything was.
For the first time it dawned on him how very large the Imperial Library was. Deet
had mentioned the numbers many times-- a staff of more than five thousand, including
machinists, carpenters, cooks, security, a virtual city in itself-- but only now did
Leyel realize that this meant that many people here had never met each other. Who
could possibly know five thousand people by name? He couldn't just walk up and ask
for Deet by name. What was the department Deet worked in? She had changed so often,
moving through the bureaucracy.
Everyone he saw was a patron-- people at lectors, people at catalogues, even
people reading books and magazines printed on paper. Where were the librarians? The
few staff members moving through the aisles turned out not to be librarians at all--
they were volunteer docents, helping newcomers learn how to use the lectors and
catalogues. They knew as little about library staff as he did.
He finally found a room full of real librarians, sitting at calculators preparing
the daily access and circulation reports. When he tried to speak to one, she merely
waved a hand at him. He thought she was telling him to go away until he realized
that her hand remained in the air, a finger pointing to the front of the room. Leyel
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moved toward the elevated desk where a fat, sleepy-looking middle-aged woman was
lazily paging through long columns of figures, which stood in the air before her in
military formation.
"Sorry to interrupt you," he said softly.
She was resting her cheek on her hand. She didn't even look at him when he spoke.
But she answered. "I pray for interruptions."
Only then did he notice that her eyes were framed with laugh lines, that her mouth
even in repose turned upward into a faint smile.
"I'm looking for someone. My wife, in fact. Deet Forska."
Her smile widened. She sat up. "You're the beloved Leyel."
It was an absurd thing for a stranger to say, but it pleased him nonetheless to
realize that Deett must have spoken of him. Of course everyone would have known that
Deet's husband was the Leyel Forska. But this woman hadn't said it that way, had
she? Not as the Leyel Forska, the celebrity. No, here he was known as "the beloved
Leyel." Even if this woman meant to tease him, Deet must have let it be known that
she had some affection for him. He couldn't help but smile. With relief. He hadn't
known that he feared the loss of her love so much, but now he wanted to laugh aloud,
to move, to dance with pleasure.
"I imagine I am," said Leyel.
"I'm Zay Wax. Deet must have mentioned me, we have lunch every day."
No, she hadn't. She hardly mentioned anybody at the library, come to think of it.
These two had lunch every day, and Leyel had never heard of her. "Yes, of course,"
said Leyel. "I'm glad to meet you."
"And I'm relieved to see that your feet actually touch the ground."
"Now and then."
"She works up in Indexing these days." Zay cleared her display.
"Is that on Trantor?"
Zay laughed. She typed in a few instructions and her display now filled with a map
of the library complex. It was a complex pile of rooms and corridors, almost
impossible to grasp. "This shows only this wing of the main building. Indexing is
these four floors."
Four layers near the middle of the display turned to a brighter color.
"And here's where you are right now."
A small room on the first floor turned white. Looking at the labyrinth between the
two lighted sections, Leyel had to laugh aloud. "Can't you just give me a ticket to
guide me?"
really hard, Lord Forska. After all, you're a genius, aren't you?"
"Not at the interior geography of buildings, whatever lies Deet might have told
you."
"You just go out this door and straight down the corridor to the elevators-- can't
miss them. Go up to fifteen. When you get out, turn as if you were continuing down
the same corridor, and after a while you go through an archway that says 'Indexing."
Then you lean back your head and bellow 'Deet' as loud as you can. Do that a few
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times and either she'll come or security will arrest you."
"That's what I was going to do if I didn't find somebody to guide me."
"I was hoping you'd ask me." Zay stood up and spoke loudly to the busy librarians.
"The cat's going away. The mice can play."
"About time," one of them said. They all laughed. But they kept working.
"Follow me, Lord Forska."
"Leyel, please."
"Oh, you're such a flirt." When she stood, she was even shorter and fatter than
she had looked sitting down. "Follow me."
They conversed cheerfully about nothing much on the way down the corridor. Inside
the elevator, they hooked their feet under the rail as the gravitic repulsion kicked
in. Leyel was so used to weightlessness after all these years of using elevators on
Trantor that he never noticed. But Zay let her arms float in the air and sighed
noisily. "I love ri
ding the elevator," she said. For the first time Leyel realized
that weightlessness must be a great relief to someone carrying as many extra
kilograms as Zay Wax. When the elevator stopped, Zay made a great show of staggering
out as if under a great burden. "My idea of heaven is to live forever in gravitic
repulsion."
"You can get gravitic repulsion for your apartment, if you live on the top floor."
"Maybe you can," said Zay. "But I have to live on a librarian's salary."
Leyel was mortified. He had always been careful not to flaunt his wealth, but
then, he had rarely talked at any length with people who couldn't afford gravitic
repulsion. "Sorry, " he said. "I don't think I could either, thege days."
"Yes, I heard you squandered your fortune on a real bang-up funeral."
Startled that she would speak so openly of it, he tried to answer in the same
joking tone. "I suppose you could look at it that way."
"I say it was worth it," she said. She looked slyly up at him. "I knew Hari, you
know. Losing him cost humanity more than if Trantor's sun went nova."
"Maybe," said Leyel. The conversation was getting out of hand. Time to be
cautious.
"Oh, don't worry. I'm not a snitch for the Pubs. Here's the Golden Archway into
Indexing. The Land of Subtle Conceptual Connections."
Through the arch, it was as though they had passed into a completely different
building. The style and trim were the same as before, with deeply lustrous fabrics
on the walls and ceiling and floor made of the same smooth sound-absorbing plastic,
glowing faintly with white light. But now-- all pretense at symmetry was gone. The
ceiling was at different heights, almost at random; on the left and right there
might be doors or archways, stairs or ramps, an alcove or a huge hall filled with
columns, shelves of books and works of art surrounding tables where indexers worked
with a half-dozen scriptors and lectors at once.
"The form fits the function," said Zay.
"I'm afraid I'm rubbernecking like a first-time visitor to Trantor."
"It's a strange place. But the architect was the daughter of an indexer, so she
knew that standard, orderly, symmetrical interior maps are the enemy of freely
connective thought. The finest touch-- and the most expensive too, I'm afraid-- is
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