Babel-17

by Samuel R. Delany

At the communication board, she put on the Sensory Helmet. “Do you want to translate for me?” The indicator light blinked acceptance. Each discorporate observer perceived the details of the gravitational and electromagnetic flux of the stasis currents for a certain frequency with all his senses, each in his separate range. Those details were myriad, and the pilot sailed the ship through those currents as sailing ships winded the liquid ocean. But the helmet made a condensation that the captain could view for a general survey of the matrix, reduced to terms that would leave the corporate viewer sane. She opened the helmet, covering her eyes, ears, and nose. Flung through loops of blue and wrung with indigo, drifted the complex of stations and planetoids making up the War Yards. A musical hum punctured with bursts of static sounded over the earphones. The olfactory emitters gave a confused odor of perfumes and hot oil charged with the bitter smell of burning citrus peel. With three of her senses filled, she was loosed from the reality of the cabin to drift through sensory abstractions. It took nearly a minute to collect her sensations, to begin their interpretation. “All right. What am I looking at?” “The lights are the various planetoids and ring stations that make up the War Yards,” the Eye explained to her. “That bluish color to the left is a radar net they have spread out toward Stellarcenter Forty-two. Those red flashes in the upper right-hand corner are just a reflecti...