The Tears of the Singers

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “One and two and,” he snapped, jabbing at the music with his violin bow. Uhura’s smooth brow furrowed with concentration, and she bent in close to study the notes. Maslin leaned in over her shoulder until they were virtually cheek to cheek. In an unconscious gesture the composer rubbed his cheek against hers, but none of that tenderness was evident in his voice.

  “That is an eighth note. Stop treating it as a quarter note. When you hold it too long you ruin the symmetry of the phrase.”

  Uhura said something inaudible, and they began again. Her rich, dark voice wove a beautiful harmony against the pure tones of the violin.

  Kirk shook his head, and dialed up a coffee. Since they had relaxed from full alert the room was, as usual, filled with listeners. Every day since their selection Maslin had worked with the landing party, and they had always drawn large audiences. The music that was being created was outstanding, but Kirk had the feeling that esthetic appreciation was not the sole reason for the popularity of the rec room. Most of the crew was at least peripherally aware of the growing attachment between Uhura and the composer, and like most small and closed societies, the ship loved a romance and the gossip it engendered.

  Kirk had given up worrying about the growing intimacy between Maslin and Uhura. It wasn’t the first time Uhura had been interested in a man, and it had never interfered with her efficiency. Kirk made a face at the taste of his now-tepid coffee, and wondered if he was displaying a male bias. After all, he had had his share of romances during his time as captain of the Enterprise, and no one had ever questioned his efficiency.

  The whistle of the intercom cut dissonantly across the music of the Bach duet. A young yeoman rose and punched the wall button. She listened for a moment, then indicated to the captain. Kirk rose, dumped his cup in a disposal, and crossed to the intercom.

  “Kirk here.”

  “Captain.”

  “Yes, Mr. Spock, what is it?”

  “Request permission to take the Enterprise out of orbit so I may closer investigate the fourth planet of the system.”

  “Find something interesting, Spock?”

  “I believe so, Captain. I was reviewing the scanner tapes which were made when we first entered the system. I have found some curious anomalies on the fourth planet, and I would like to verify the readings.”

  “You’re the science officer, Mr. Spock. Just be sure to let our Klingon friends know what you’re doing so they don’t get nervous and trigger-happy.”

  “Naturally, Captain.”

  “Keep me posted. Kirk out.” He punched off the intercom, dialed a fresh coffee and returned to his seat to enjoy this moment of relaxation. Once the landing party beamed down to Taygeta he wouldn’t have time for such moments.

  Spock concluded his conversation with Kor, and shook his head over the illogic of the Klingon mind. Once Kor had learned that Spock’s investigation of the fourth planet would most likely have nothing to do with the phenomenon, he lost all interest and declined to send a Klingon vessel as backup or watchdog. There was little interest in knowledge for knowledge’s sake in the Klingon makeup, an attitude which Spock found inconceivable.

  “Mr. Sulu, please take us into orbit around the fourth planet, and the com is yours while I make my observations.”

  “Aye, aye, Mr. Spock.” The helmsman’s slender fingers flew over the board. “Course is plotted and locked in, ETA in twelve minutes.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” Spock gravely inclined his head, and surrendered the command chair to Sulu. The Vulcan then took up his position at the science station, and waited patiently to begin his scan.

  The seared and barren surface of the planet slid monotonously away beneath the main screen of the Enterprise. Sulu shifted in the command chair, and wondered how much longer Spock was going to spend staring at an empty rock.

  “Mr. Spock,” he said at last. “This place looks as if it’s been hit by a missile bombardment. It has the same appearance as planets that were heavily irradiated during the Romulan War.”

  Spock raised his head from the hood of his viewer. “Quite correct, Lieutenant. Sensors indicate that this system was swept by the frontal wave of a gigantic nova some three thousand years ago. Only rudimentary life now exists on the planet below us.”

  “Three thousand years?” Sulu echoed. “But, Mr. Spock, if that’s the case how are—”

  “The Taygetians still present on their world? An interesting question, Mr. Sulu.” The Vulcan stepped down from his station and crossed to the command chair. Sulu quickly vacated and returned to the helm. With his eyes still on the barren face of the planet, Spock depressed the com button, signaling the rec room. This time it was Kirk who answered.

  “Thought it might be you,” the captain said. “What have you got?”

  “A fascinating contradiction, Captain. If you could come to the bridge.”

  “On my way.”

  Kirk found Spock standing impassively at the science station. Before he could speak, the Vulcan’s long fingers were playing over the console.

  “These are the results of the scan taken over the past thirty minutes. I will play it on the main screen, magnification eight.”

  Kirk turned to regard the screen. The seared landscape rolled by, every crack and fissure clearly discernible at this high magnification. Suddenly a highly regular stone structure came into view. Kirk’s eyes narrowed, and he tugged thoughtfully at his lower lip. Spock reached over, and froze the tape on the blackened structure.

  “Obviously an artifact. Those kinds of angles don’t occur in nature. What do you make of it, Spock?”

  “At some point this planet was inhabited by a race of intelligent beings. Given the design and sophistication of the buildings I would estimate them to have been developmentally comparable to your Babylonians at the time of their destruction.”

  “Destruction?”

  “Yes, Captain.” The science officer snapped on the screen above his station. “Scanners indicate that this system took the brunt of a frontal wave which issued from a nova occurring here.” The screen switched to a geodesic star map, and a red arrow pinpointed an irregular splash of light among the stars. “I have backtraced the wave of radiation, and it is clear that it swept through this system approximately three thousand one hundred and five years ago. A distance scan of the other planets in this system indicates the same radiation destruction. All except Taygeta.”

  Kirk leaned on the back of Spock’s chair. “Is it possible that life managed to take hold on Taygeta faster than on the other planets?”

  “The odds of that occurring are infinitesimally small, Captain. On an evolutionary time scale three thousand years is as a second to us. To assume that sea life, and the simple vegetation of Taygeta, evolved in three thousand years is inconceivable. To further assume that a race of intelligent sea dwellers evolved in that same span of time is impossible. No, it is apparent that the Taygetians were here when the nova reached this system.”

  “And their survival?”

  “Is a mystery. I suggest that the answer cannot be found from the Enterprise. I think we can only determine how the Taygetians avoided the holocaust that enveloped their system on the surface of their world.”

  “You sound like a man who’s impatient to get his landing party into action.”

  “Impatient?” Spock echoed, slightly raising one eyebrow. “No, Captain, I should say it is logic rather than impatience that dictates my suggestion that the landing party beam down. We have clearly gone as far as is scientifically possible from the bridge of the Enterprise.”

  “All right, Mr. Spock. All the supplies have been readied, and if you’re finished here we may as well get to it.” Kirk crossed to the command chair, and opened an intership frequency. “This is the captain. The Taygetian landing party will report to the transporter room immediately.”

  “Hadn’t we better inform the Klingons that we are ready to beam down?”

  “Oh God, yes. They’ll want to be right on our hee
ls, or they’ll suspect us of double dealing.”

  “It is very wearying to deal with beings who judge everyone by their own irrational suspicions,” Spock said disdainfully.

  “Still, I’d rather be dealing with them than shooting at them, Spock. It’s not helping my nerves any knowing that there are two of them against one of us.”

  “Logical, Captain, but I would point out that mere numerical superiority will not always determine the outcome of a military engagement. Tactical expertise must also be considered, and you are well known for your talents in that area.”

  “Thank you for the vote of confidence, but we don’t know what sort of talents Kor might have in that direction. We’ve only encountered him as a garrison commander on Organia.”

  “Then we shall hope that events will not require a test of military skills.”

  “Amen to that, Spock. Shall we go?” Kirk said, indicating the turbolift. “Mr. Sulu, the ship is yours. See to it that our Klingon allies are informed of our landing.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You were supposed to be in the transporter room five minutes ago,” Uhura said mildly while Maslin vibrated about the room like a hysterical pinball. She was dressed in cold-weather fatigues. The grey-and-white pants and knee-high boots covered her long legs, and her elegant figure was masked by the bulky parka.

  “God damn it!” he yelled, flinging a handful of loose musical notation pages into the air. “I am not a watchmaker,” he continued as he stood in a blizzard of falling papers. “I’m an artist! I will not be hurried!”

  “I know you’re nervous and frightened, but don’t you dare take it out on me,” Uhura snapped. “If I had known you weren’t ready I would never have agreed to that musical session in the rec room. Now get packed before the captain comes himself instead of just sending me.”

  His energy and tension evaporated, and he sank down on the edge of his bed. “I don’t know what to take,” he said quietly.

  The communications officer moved to the hidden dresser and pulled out an armful of underwear. She then gathered up his personal toiletries from the bathroom, and dumped the entire load into his arms. Cold-weather fatigues had already been called up from stores, and lay across the foot of his bed.

  “Now, I suggest that you get changed. A balmy day on Taygeta is around thirty-five degrees Fahrenheit, and those linen suits of yours just aren’t going to cut it. As for musical equipment I think you might be able to handle that yourself,” she concluded dryly.

  He looked up into her beautiful and impassive face. “You won’t let me get away with anything, will you?”

  “No. Spoiled brats and temper tantrums don’t amuse me. I don’t have time to bother with them.”

  “I thought you loved me,” he said, sounding somewhat like a child who has just discovered that mother spanks.

  “I sleep with you,” Uhura corrected. “Don’t confuse the action with the emotion. And even if I did love you it’s not license for you to treat me like a doormat.” Maslin kept his eyes nervously averted from her, and concentrated instead on folding and placing the clothes in a backpack. “Your medicine,” she added abruptly as he started to close the pack.

  “Oh yes.” He crossed to the dresser and removed the bottle of pills from the top drawer. He tossed it into the pack, seamed it shut, and headed for the door.

  “Do you need any of these?” Uhura asked, bending to retrieve one of the notation pages.

  “No, I just use them for doodling … and as a prop for my tantrums,” he added with an apologetic glance toward her.

  A smile tugged at her lips. “And I suppose that passes for an apology from you?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he replied shortly, and stepped into the corridor.

  She sighed, and shook her head. “Okay, I suppose one can’t settle for everything.”

  “Ah, but in me you come very close.”

  She couldn’t think of a sufficiently crushing retort so she let it pass, and led him quickly to the transporter room.

  Kirk was jigging with impatience when they arrived. He looked at Maslin as if debating whether to speak, then seemed to think better of it. Instead he busied himself with last-minute instructions to Lieutenant Kyle, who stood behind the transporter console. Uhura looked around the transporter room, thinking how strange it seemed to see the landing party without their identifying uniform colors. Only the gold braid on the sleeves of the jackets distinguished one white-suited figure from the other.

  “We’re ready, sir,” Lieutenant Kyle said, finishing some final adjustments to the transporter. “We’re going to put you down near a large group of the Taygetian cubs.”

  “Very well, Mr. Kyle. May as well find out right away if the natives are hostile,” Kirk added as he bounded onto the transporter platform. “Signal the freight transporter to send down the equipment after we’ve had a chance to take a look around, and find a suitable campsite.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Spock, Uhura, Maslin, Scotty and Yeoman Chou, a diminutive Chinese girl who looked like she ought to be wearing a silk kimono rather than toting a phaser, joined Kirk on the platform. Lieutenant Donovan hefted his guitar in its case, and watched as the transporter hummed to life. He and the three security guards would follow the first group to the Taygetian surface.

  They became aware of the song even before they had fully materialized. It seemed to reach deep into the soul and set up an answering resonance in the listener. Even to an untrained ear like Kirk’s it was apparent that they were hearing only a thin slice of the total melody. Fascinating and beautiful motifs would catch the ear, then whirl away into a range beyond human hearing. Certain harmonies would weave and blend, but there was always a disconcerting feeling that a voice or two was missing. It was almost a sensory overload, and for several moments the humans stood in rapt contemplation of the music.

  Spock, as always unmoved by externals, had switched on his tricorder the moment materialization was complete, and was busy monitoring the readings. Maslin, an expression of enchantment on his narrow face, took a step forward, and almost lost his footing in the soft, glittering sand. Uhura instinctively reached out to steady him, and for once he didn’t snap at her for her solicitude; he was too intent upon the song.

  Overhead the sky was a strange silver gray, but there was no evidence of clouds. Behind them the ice green waves boomed onto the beach and ran hissing and foaming up the sand. Small birdlike creatures, their sparkling blue head feathers fluttering from their speed, retreated, peeping, from the advancing waters. Then, as the waves receded, they would rush back toward the ocean, feeding on something the waters had left behind. The breeze from the sea was clean, tangy and bitterly cold.

  “Sweet Jesus,” Scotty murmured, covering one ear. “If these beasties keep this up day and night it’s a hard time we’re going to have sleeping.”

  “Evidence indicates that to be the case, Mr. Scott,” Spock said. “But I expect we will become accustomed to the sound after several hours.”

  “Look, Captain,” Yeoman Chou said, pointing down the beach. “We’re arousing some interest.”

  They all looked quickly in the direction of her gesture. Several hundred yards down the beach thirty or so white-pelted Taygetians gazed at them with wide blue eyes. Many lay tumbled over one another as if the arrival of the humans had interrupted them in the midst of some game. For several seconds the two groups regarded one another, then the cubs set up a veritable cacophony of chirpings, warblings, hums and whistles, all the while glancing fearfully from the humans to the glistening crystal cliffs that rose like ice castles from the diamond-bright sands. It was from the cliffs that the mighty chorus rose, and by narrowing their eyes against the brilliance of the cliffs and sand, the humans could distinguish several adult Taygetians in their crystal grottos.

  “It’s like they’re warning the adults,” Uhura said quietly.

  “And with absolutely no result,” Maslin added, shading his eyes with one slender hand. “The
y’re just continuing the song.”

  “The behavior of the cubs strongly indicates intelligence, but the adults …” Spock shook his head. “Such disregard for potential danger would argue against their being intelligent.”

  “Not necessarily, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said. “Animals will always panic and flee when faced with a potential threat. The major exception I can think of to that rule—animals who are able to put their fears aside and stand in the face of danger—are very intelligent ones like humans, and Vulcans, and Andorians. I could go on, but you get the idea.”

  “Then you are suggesting that the Taygetians are responding to some higher duty, or that we are just not important enough to merit a response, Captain?”

  “It does sort of look that way.” The distinctive hum of the transporter rose from behind them, and moments later Donovan and the three security guards coalesced from the shimmering particles.

  “Lt. Kyle said to have you signal him when you’ve located a campsite. He also suggested that you pick a place that’s in the shelter of a cliff so that if there should be a storm we’ll be protected.”

  “Thank you, Donovan, and I think Lt. Kyle’s suggestions are well merited.”

  They began walking, and about three hundred yards down the beach the cliffs made a sharp bend, creating a sheltered cove. Kirk liked the defensibility of the location, so it was there that Kyle materialized the substantial amount of equipment required by the landing party. Kirk gave a nod of satisfaction.

  “Okay, let’s get to it. The sooner the camp is up the sooner you can erect a perimeter, and the better I’ll feel.”

  “You don’t think we’re in any danger, do you, Captain?” Uhura asked.

  “With two Klingon battle cruisers orbiting above us, and a party of Klingons about to land on this planet, not to mention a race of unknown beings inhabiting the cliffs around us? Why no, of course not,” he concluded with a twinkle in his hazel eyes. Uhura chuckled, but her face was thoughtful as she joined Maslin.

  The cubs watched as the humans began to unpack their equipment. When the landing party approached the base of the cliffs the cubs’ cries took on an almost hysterical note, then died into a confused melodic murmuring as the humans continued to erect their camp, paying no attention to the adults who serenely sang above them.