Babel-17

by Samuel R. Delany

Ships rose on white flares, blued through distance, and became bloody stars in the rusted sky.

In Plato’s time things were names for ideas—what better description of the Platonic Ideal?

“Butcher, there are certain ideas which have words for them. If you don’t know the words, you can’t know the ideas. And if you don’t have the idea, you don’t have the answer.”