Star Song and Other Stories

"The reasons and motivations don't matter," I interrupted the budding debate.

"The bottom line is that we've got trouble on the way."

"I can't allow my people to be forced into servitude, Captain," Peter said softly, the lines in his face deepening. "If it comes to that choice, we will fight."

"Let's see if we can't find a third choice," I said. "Tell me about those flapblacks that surround the colony, the ones who chase away the others. What are they, predators of some kind?"

Peter smiled sadly. "Hardly. They're merely the eldest of the Star Spirits.

The ones marking their last few weeks as they wait for death."

An unpleasant shiver ran up my back. I knew all creatures died, of course, and in fact we'd had that argument on the way in over whether our wrapping flapblacks were getting eaten. But somehow the thought of a group of aging flapblacks hovering together waiting quietly to die was more disturbing than I

would have expected it to be. Perhaps it took some of the magic away, or perhaps it felt too much like the death of a favorite pet.

"Like all Star Spirits, they enjoy music," Peter continued quietly. "But of a particular kind, the kind only we apparently know how to write for them.

That's what the music in the colony is for."

Abruptly, Suze

He says he carried you once a long time ago."

A second chill ran through me. "They get into our minds?" I asked carefully.

"Not just the musicmaster's, I mean, but all the rest of us, too?"

"No, they can't read minds, Captain," Peter assured me. "Not even ours, and we're as attuned to them as any humans have ever been. No, they simply recognize you by the shape of your minds, just as you recognize them by the spectra of their passing." "I see," I murmured. Like a favorite pet, I'd just thought. Only which of us was the pet? "So why do they drive the other flapblacks away?"

"They don't," Suze

I scratched my cheek. Bits and pieces of a nebulous plan were starting to swirl together in my brain. "Does that mean that if you asked them to move aside for awhile and let the younger ones in, they would do it?"

Peter shook his head. "I know what you're thinking, my friend. But it won't work."

"Well, I don't know what he's thinking," Jimmy spoke up.

"It's simple, Jimmy," I told him. "Cousin Chen went to a lot of trouble to scatter all those loudspeakers around the colony. I think it would be a shame to waste all that effort."

"But it won't work," Peter repeated. "We've talked with the Star Spirits about this. They simply aren't strong enough to carry the Freedom's Peace."

"Maybe," I said. "Maybe not. You say you've talked to them; but you didn't say you've played music for them."

"Are you suggesting we force them to carry us?" Suze

"It's not a matter of forcing," I said. "They enjoy the music—you know that as well as we do. I think it acts like a stimulant to them."

"So now you're suggesting we effectively drug them—"

"Excuse me," Rhonda put in gently. "Your Highness, how long have you been providing music for the dying flapblacks to listen to?"

"Quite a few years," Peter said, frowning. "All of my lifetime, certainly."

"And how often during those years have you had a younger flapblack carry any of you anywhere?"

He shrugged. "Three or four times, perhaps. But those were only our small scout ships. Not nearly as big even as your transport."

"Then perhaps that's the real problem," Rhonda said. "You can talk to the flapblacks, but your perception of them has been skewed by the fact that most of the time you're talking to the old and dying, not the young and healthy."

"You talked about whale and dolphins earlier," I put in. "I suggest a better analogy might be dogs."

"Dogs?" Peter asked.

"Yes." I waved a hand around. "You've been surrounded for decades by aging, crippled Chihuahuas. That's not what most of the flapblacks are like."

"And what are they like?"

"Big, exuberant malamutes," I told him. "And with all due respect, your people may understand them, but we know how to make them run."

For a moment there was silence. Then, with a sigh, Peter nodded. "I'm still not convinced," he said. "But you're right, it has to be tried."

"Thank you." I turned to Jimmy. "Go take a look at that player interface of Chen's and see what kind of music she's got programmed onto it. Then get in touch with that musician you were visiting this morning and have him whistle up the colony's whole music contingent.

"We're going to have ourselves a concert." The Grand Center of the Arts was considerably smaller than I would have expected for a place with such an impressive title, though considering the colony's limited populace I suppose its size made sense. The main auditorium was compact but with a feeling of spaciousness to it and a main floor that would supposedly seat two thousand people.

We were only going to need a fraction of that capacity tonight. Gathered together by the front of the stage were Jimmy and the sixty-eight colonists he'd been able to sift through his impromptu musicmaster screening test in the past six hours. Above them in the balcony, I waited with Peter and eighty hand-picked colonists who were considered especially in tune with the flapblacks. Star Spirits. Whatever.

A motion down at the stage caught my eye: Jimmy, his final instructions completed, was giving me the high sign. I waved acknowledgement and keyed the radio link Suze

Looks like we're about ready here. You all set?"

"Roger that," he confirmed. "Inertial's all calibrated and warmed up. If you get this chunk of rock moving, we'll know it."

"Okay," I said. "Stand ready."

I stepped over to Peter, standing alone at the balcony rail gazing down at the musicians gathered below. "We're all ready, sir," I said. "You can give the order any time."

He smiled faintly, a smile that didn't touch his eyes. "You give the order, Captain. It's your show."

I shook my head. "It may be my show. But it's your world."

His smile became something almost sad as he turned to face the others on the balcony. "Your attention, please," he said. "We're ready. Tell the Ancients it's time, and ask them to move away from the colony."

For a long moment there was silence. Then Peter turned back to me and nodded.

"It's all clear," he said. "They may begin."

I looked down at Jimmy and raised my hand. He nodded and fiddled with something on Chen's player interface; and faintly from the tiles beneath my feet I heard the drone of the C-sharp pre-music call. A few seconds later the tone was replaced by the opening brass fanfare of the first movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony.

I waited a few bars, then keyed my radio link. "Bilko?"

"Yeah, I can hear the music," he said. "I had a flapblack shoot past, I think, but so far—wait a second. I thought the inertial... yeah. Yeah, we're off.

Moving in fits and starts, but we are moving."

"What do you mean, fits and starts?" I asked frowning. "Aren't they getting a good wrap?"

"When they've got the wrap, they seem to have it pretty solid," Bilko said.

"They just keep losing it, that's all. Either they keep unwrapping because Jimmy's people aren't very good at this, or else we're just too big to lug very far at a time."

"I can understand that," I said. "I've done my share of helping friends move across town." "Yeah, me too," Bilko said. "And you have to admit this place is the ultimate five-section couch."

"True," I said. "But we're putting some distance between us and Chen's coordinates, and that's the important thing."