The Dragons of Babel

"Wait. If you're in such a bad position, then why are you involving us in your problems?"

"Pfft. I can talk my way out of anything.''

Hoisting Esme in one arm and Will's suitcase in the other, the lanky fey pushed through the crowd. Will hurried after, awkwardly toting two of Nat's bags and dragging a third behind him. He struggled to keep sight of Nat and Esme, fearful that if he looked away for even an instant he would lose them forever in the scurrying throngs.

In less time than he would have thought, a customs agent frowned down at Nat's papers, spoke briefly into a telephone, and shunted all three of them through a side doorway. "You want Immigration Control, room 102, down to the end of the hall. You can't miss it. It's the only entranceway that isn't ensorceled to kill unidentified perso

Room 102 felt preternaturally still after the hubbub of the train hall. Two Formica-topped tables, overflowing with papers, divided the room, with only a narrow passage between them. Under the tables were cardboard boxes crammed with documents. On the far wall, past overflowing filing cabinets, hung two government-issue prints, one to either side of a closed door. They were, predictably enough, Bruegel's Tower of Babel and his "Little" Tower of Babel, each showing the city as it must have looked in its early stages of construction. In the foreground of the first, King Nimrod loomed over worshipful stonemasons like the giant that he was, sternly admonishing them to ever more heroic feats of construction. But in the other there were no figures at all, and the Tower was ruddy, dark, and ominous, the conflicted hero of its own complex psychodrama.

Two winged hulls with the faces of men and long, square-cut beards, turned, hooves clattering, when Nat, Will, and Esme entered the room. Their hair, beards, and the ends of their tails were elaborately curled and coiffed. They had no arms, of course, but each was attended by a pair of apes in the red uniform with yellow piping of Immigration Control.

"Vašu putovnicu, molim!" one bull-man said sternly.

Nat proffered his passport. An ape held it up for his superior to examine,

"Imate li što za prijaviti?"

"No, I have nothing to declare. Other than my not being Croatian, I mean."

The winged bull glowered with disapproval, and switched languages. "And yet you're in this office. Why are you here, if you should be elsewhere? Do you think to make fools of us?"

"No, that's my business — see?" Smiling fatuously, Nat jabbed a finger at the papers. "Ichabod the Fool. That's me."

There was a long silence. Then the man-bull tossed his head in the direction of the rear wall. "You see that door?" One of the apes scampered to the door and opened it. "Once you walk out through it, you'll never need worry about this office again. But to do that, you've got to get past us." The ape shut the door and returned to his station. "So I recommend that you—"

"This document is a forgery!" the second agent roared abruptly. To Will's astonishment, it was not Nat's passport but his own that the agent's ape was holding up. "They are all forgeries!"

"No, no, no," Nat clucked, shaking his head reassuringly.

"The transit codes, the ports of origin—all wrong!" The winged bull turned from the passport ape to another who was holding open a book the size of a telephone directory. "According to this, you should have been taken to Ur."

"It wasn't my choice to come here," Will objected. "They put me on the train, and this is where it took me. "These are the papers that the DPC officials at Camp Oberon gave me — if they're wrong, then that's their fault and not mine."

"It is your responsibility to make sure that any documents issued you are correct and that you're legally entitled to them." The bull nodded his head and his ape shuffled another passport to the fore. "The girl's papers don't list her year of birth."

"We don't know it," Will said.

"Oh? How can that be?" The agent turned to Nat. "Surely you, being her father, ought to know that."

"I wasn't present when she was born," Nat said smoothly. "I travel a great deal. But it should be apparent that my daughter is nine years old. Just put down Year of the Grasshopper."

Esme sat atop their piled luggage, playing quietly with a corn husk doll. Now she looked up, beaming, and said. "I like grasshoppers."

"It is not our job to assist in your forgeries, bur to examine them for inconsistencies. Your own passport, for example, is a treasure trove of such. It is printed on a grade of paper never employed for official instruments. It lacks the requisite watermarks. The typeface is laughable. The transshipment stamps appear to have been applied by an ineptly carved raw potato. Even the photograph is suspect. It doesn't look a bit like you."

"Really," Nat said, looking at his watch, "I don't know why we're still here. You're being u

"Rights?" The first winged bull snorted. "You have no rights. Only obligations and privileges. I define the obligations, and the privileges are contingent upon my goodwill. They can be revoked without explanation or appeal at my whim. Remember that."

"Further," the second winged bull said, "there is more to being a citizen than mere arrogance. You might as well save the act. auslander. We've seen it all."

For an instant, Nat seemed at a loss for words. Then, with an urbane tsk, he said, "This can all be cleared up easily enough." He drew several bills from his wallet and placed them between two mounds of yellow flimsies. "I am certain that if you examine these papers, you'll find..."

Will had not thought the bulls' eyes could open wider than they were, nor that their expressions could be any more outraged. Now he saw that he was wrong. As one, the two bureaucrats reared their heads back, nostrils flaring with horror. They stamped their hooves and flapped their wings angrily. One brushed against a file cabinet, almost dislodging the folders stacked atop it.

"Place this really quite insulting attempt at bribery in an evidence envelope," one said to the nearest ape.

"Then place the evidence envelope in an accordion file!" commanded the other.

"Add photocopies of all the paperwork introduced so far." "Open a new case number."

"Cross-reference and send copies to all appropriate offices."

"Get the forms preliminary to swearing out a criminal complaint."

"Document each step and every form in the case log."

As the apes ran wildly about, slamming file drawers open and shut, working the photocopier, and assembling great masses of paper, one man-bull brought his face quite close to Nat's and menacingly said, "You will find that an attempt to suborn agents of His Absent Majesty's governance is not taken lightly here in Babel."

"Suborn' is such a harsh word," Nat protested. "I was only—"

"Since you are transparently not a citizen," the other bull said, "you do not have the right to a lawyer. Should you have the money for one, it will he removed from you. Anything you say, think, or fail to admit can and will be used against you. You will not be told under what charges you are being detained, nor allowed to confront such witnesses as may be subpoenaed to testify to your guilt, nor be informed as how much they were paid to do so. While incarcerated, you will be required to pay room and board at market rates. If you ca

"Perhaps I was insufficiently generous. Should I throw in some silage? I've got excellent co

Esme tugged Will's sleeve and, when he bent down to the level of her mouth, whispered. "I smell something burning."