He asked the star its name between floors eighty-two and eighty-three.
Not in language. The star had no language in the sense that climbers or constellations or Tower communication systems used language. What it had was the preservation register — the complete and intact holding of significant things in their full structural form, offered without compression or translation.
He formed the question in that register as accurately as he could. Not words, not intent shaped into approximate language. A precise orientation of attention toward the presence alongside him, carrying the specific quality of a question that was asking not for information but for identity — the full fact of what a thing was, offered intact.
The star received the question.
