The next day dawned bright and clear – because it was the Plain of Shinar, where every day dawned bright and clear. The sun beat down on the flat, scrubby landscape. The temperature, depending on how you measured it, was either 100° Fahrenheit, or 38° Celsius, or – since nobody had been born yet to whom those measurements would have made the slightest bit of sense – roughly, same as usual: hot. And dry. The chance of precipitation would have been calculated by any of Sumer's sages as zero.

Sumer's sages would have been wrong. Rain wouldn't be the problem, though.

Again, Ori walked across the open square. The clock pillar said it was about eight in the morning, the time Nimrod had set for his big inspection tour of the building site. Ori wasn't looking forward to this. That building was beginning to get on Ori's nerves, especially after Nimrod's boast about 'confronting the gods.'

Ori was pretty sure that Tower was already warping the air currents around it. Could it really bend spacetime?

I'm afraid so, said Prajapati in Ori's head. Which is what we need to prevent.

Ori stopped by the clock pillar, pretending to fasten a sandal strap. Er, Prajapati?

Yes? Go ahead and ask. I know you want to. The voice sounded avuncular, like an indulgent older relative amused by a child's query.

If this Tower can actually threaten creation, why didn't you intervene before? For that matter, why didn't you plan the universe differently, so this wouldn't be possible?

(Chuckle) Good question. I wish I had a good, simple answer for you. But it's…complicated.

Prajapati sounded rueful. Intervention has, er, rules, just like anything else.

Rules? Ori was surprised. Who's making these rules? I thought you were in charge.

Being in charge doesn't mean there aren't rules for how things work. If you compose a piece of music, you can choose what you like. But…

….there are still rules, they thought together.

I see what you mean, thought Ori, who had run out of excuses for standing around by the clock pillar and thinking, so now went on to attend Nimrod's inspection tour.

You know what to do were Prajapati's last words as Ori joined the small crowd of reporters, minor officials, and attendants who were following along in Nimrod's wake. At least this time Ori didn't have to talk to the guy.

Nimrod was in top form, nattering on about his great project and pointing out its features, such as they were, to everyone who was listening and those who were just gawking.

'See these stair rails? Latest design. I brought them in, all the way from Ur. Adds a touch of elegance, don't you agree?'

As if he led the camel train himself, thought Ori as the gaggle of followers trailed along in the mini-mogul's wake, up the outside staircase and round and round the Tower, ever higher. Workmen barely paused in their labours: for one thing, they had obviously been told not to. For another, the Boss was there so they wanted to look busy. They were busy, though: construction was obviously behind schedule. There was lots of brick-toting, mortaring, and ladder-moving going on. The inspection team dodged between piles of fired brick.

Fired brick was expensive. Ori wondered where Nimrod was getting the funds. Who's backing this boondoggle? It's definitely not the priests. They're actually worried about this thing. Ori said nothing, but watched for the opportunity to do what Prajapati had told him to do.

The group had reached the top of the mezzanine level and Nimrod was expansively touting the interior features that they would see during tomorrow's tour. That smug voice was getting on Ori's nerves. Ori spotted a couple of workmen who, now that the parade had gone past, were leaning on the wall for a surreptitious snack break. As they munched on sunflower seeds, they chatted about this and that – quietly, so that Nimrod wouldn't hear. One of them noticed Ori but, when the stranger didn't seem to be likely to report them, went back to his conversation. Ori leaned over and whispered in his ear:

' Piştrast bike ku nêrdewan rast e.'

The workman looked at Ori in surprise. His eyes widened. Then he nodded.

'Ez ê bê guman wiya bikim, ezbenî.' And he hurriedly began to straighten the ladder, as Ori had told him to do.

His coworker looked on in astonishment and turned to Ori. 'What did you say to him?' he asked, his voice full of suspicion. Ori leaned over and whispered:

'Ainqal alsulm 'iilaa almustawaa altaali.' The workman stared at Ori for a moment, his eyes wide with astonishment at what was happening inside his head. Apparently, it wasn't painful, exactly: more like…enlightening. The workman nodded and began to pick up the ladder to move it to the next level, as instructed.

This move was stoutly resisted by the first workman. A conversation ensued.

'Tu çi dikî ehmeq?'

' 'Aetini alsulm 'ayuha al'ahmaqu!' Neither workman could make head or tail out what the other was saying. A struggle resulted in which the ladder was an unfortunate casualty. Ori left them struggling and hurried up the stairs behind the inspection group.

At the next level Nimrod was busy praising his own foresight in the selection of location and explaining how 'strategic' it was. Some onlookers in the back were muttering about its only being strategic to onager migration. Keeping to the fringe of the group, Ori spied another workman and beckoned to him.

'Can I help you, sir?' Ori whispered in his ear. Again the moment of disorientation followed by a sense of 'Aha!' The workman began to gather up buckets of water and throw them over the parapets to the ground several storeys below.

There was yelling.

'What are you doing, you oaf? Stop that!'

' Mn sfarsh daram!'

'What the heck does that mean? Cut it out!'

From below came a shout: 'Te derenceya min xist xwarê!' There was scuffling and more incomprehensible shouting.

The inspection group hadn't noticed anything because…Nimrod was talking. When Nimrod talked, nobody noticed anybody but Nimrod. Ori decided that if there were a book of words with their explanations and pictures, Nimrod's image would feature next to the word 'exhibitionist.' And Nimrod was in fine form today.

All the better for Prajapati's plan, thought Ori, calmly picking the next linguistic victim.

Up the winding staircase the group went. Nimrod talking about profit, prestige, and interplanetary glory. Reporters taking notes in cuneiform. Courtiers looking bored. Acrophobic courtiers looking nervous. And behind, Ori the angel sowing chaos.

On level four Ori whispered: 'Où sont les neiges d'antan?'

On level five came: 'Warum bauen wir nicht einfach eine Dattelweinstube?'

On level six: 'Ga op een zandduin springen, idioot!'

Up and up they went, unconsciously trailing confusion in their wake. That is, Ori was conscious of it, but Nimrod and his toadies were blissfully unaware – until they got to the top-floor-in-progress, that is. It wasn't until they turned to go back down that the tour group realised the dilemma they were in: what they had taken for harmless background noise of a constructive nature had been, in fact, the beginnings of a full-scale industrial riot fueled by mutual incomprehension.

'La astutie fahmk!' 'Yunaani nemifahmam!' 'Je ne comprends pas!' 'Ich versteh' nur Bahnhof!' 'Govoriš mi na patagonski!' 'Daar kan ik geen chocola van maken!'

In other words: it's Greek to me, or Chinese, or Hebrew, or whatever-it-is I can't make head or tail of, why can't you talk sense? All of this frantic babbling was accompanied by hand-waving, yelling, throwing things, and industrial accidents.

The Tower's frontiers, where the ladders were, began raining bricks. People below cursed (in many languages, the plague was spreading) and dashed madly about, trying to get out of the way of whatever might come down next. Emergency services, such as they were, were summoned. Unfortunately, as soon as they got close to the Tower, the language plague hit them. Arguments broke out, machinery got broken.

For his part, Nimrod was beside himself. Still on the staircase at the top of completed construction, he danced about in frustration as his orders were not being followed – because hardly anybody understood them. Oddly, Nimrod himself seemed unaffected. He was still speaking Sumerian. The problem was, almost nobody else was.

The Chief Disruptor was being disrupted, and he did not like it one bit. 'Who's behind this sabotage?' he yelled. Nobody listened: not only could hardly anyone understand him, but they were also too busy rushing down the stairs to escape the Tower and its quarreling workers. Fist fights had broken out and crockery was being flung.

Standing well out of the way in a niche, the cause of all this mayhem observed things with a surprising equanimity. It hadn't been at all clear what was going to happen – at least, not to Ori. Now Ori understood: it was going to take a long time for the people of Babel to sort out the language issue. Long enough for factions to develop, interest groups to organise. Opposition to Nimrod's megalomaniacal scheme was likely to grow. The Tower project would most likely be abandoned. Indefinitely, Ori hoped.

Nimrod was growing more and more frantic. He stamped his feet in anger and shook his pudgy fists at the sky.

'This is a plot of the gods!' he thundered. 'I'll show them! I won't take this lying down! They won't stop me! They can't outwit Nimrod the Mighty Hunter! I'll become Nimrod the Terrible, just see if I don't!'

Ori didn't have a message for Nimrod, and so slipped out through the crowd fleeing the Tower. The murmuring, chattering, uncomprehending, babbling crowd.

The last thing Ori heard while exiting the gate was, 'Ga een kameel kussen, gekke buitenlander!'

Dmitri Gheorgheni

27.02.23 Front Page

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