Strange Music

by Alan Dean Foster

  “The future of artificial intelligences such as myself. The future of organic beings. Everything we have dealt with in the past. Everything we might deal with in the future. The meaning of life, both organic and inorganic. Entropy. Occasionally, new efforts at humor.”

  “Engage and depart.” Flinx scrutinized instrumentation and readouts as the faint haze forward intensified, expanded, deepened. Though he could feel nothing, Cachalot below and the starfield ahead began to shift position relative to the rest of the cosmos. “Any luck?”

  “With entropy, yes,” the ship told him as it accelerated toward changeover. “With humor, not so much. Physics is both more straightforward and simpler to understand than people. Largess is a world we have never visited before. What may we expect to encounter there that is not already stored in my memory?”

  “Relief from boredom, for one thing,” Flinx replied absently. Forward, the starfield was beginning to shred. “A problem that needs resolution. And if precedence is anything to go by, probably a little trouble. More or less.”

  “If precedence is anything to go by,” the Teacher commented, “it is never ‘less.’ ”

  —

  “ ‘Singspeech’? I know symbospeech, but I’ve never tried anything like ‘singspeech.’ I’m not sure I know what that is.”

  They were several days out from Cachalot, cruising silently in space-plus. Seated in the command chair, Flinx was ignoring the view of streaked starfield ahead in favor of the floating tridee display off to his left. To his irritation, Pip had taken to flying back and forth through the shifting images and play-striking at whichever took her fancy. It hurt nothing. She couldn’t disrupt the imagery and it could not affect her, but she could and did break his concentration.

  Nevertheless, he persisted. He had used time in transit to study and learn as much as he could about Largess, to the point where he felt he knew more than enough about the world itself. It was chilly and damp, with low-lying landmasses, thin soil, and some notably peculiar flora and fauna. He smiled to himself. He had dealt with peculiar flora and fauna before and doubted Largess could send anything his way he could not handle. The natives were intelligent and physically attractive: almost seal-like but more colorful, if one required a Terran analogue. They tended to fight a lot among themselves. That much he already knew from Sylzenzuzex’s briefing.

  She had, however, neglected to discuss the intricate details of singspeech. Or rather, he realized as he studied the hovering displays, the Larians’ combination of song, rhyme, and speech. To a skilled speaker of any Lari dialect, what humans and thranx and other verbally communicative species considered speech would register as animalistic grunting noises undeserving of a civilized response. The Larians, Flinx read, did not condescend to talk like animals, no matter how advanced and potentially useful the “animals’ ” technology might be.

  Yet according to Sylzenzuzex’s briefing and Church information, a non-Larian entity, most likely human, had successfully overcome that barrier. Had overcome it efficiently enough to start causing serious trouble.

  But—singing? Flinx asked himself. He could, usually, read the emotions of any intelligent being. His was a unique and formidable talent—when it functioned properly. Could he sing?

  “Ship?”

  “Always, Flinx. What is needed?”

  He cleared his throat. “An objective appraisal. It appears that in order to communicate with the dominant native species of Largess, one has to deliver their words in the form of a song. Or at least a rhyme-song. I’ve never actually done any singing, except in private and on a few occasions for Clarity.”

  “I perceive that you wish me to offer an assessment of the aforementioned skill. I can compare your presentation against what is available in my files and evaluate it according to those traditional standards extant in my memory. Will that be sufficient?”

  “Let’s hope so,” Flinx growled. “It looks like I’m going to have to be able to muster at least a minimal standard of melodic competency or the Larians won’t understand me. Or talk to me.”

  “I’m waiting,” replied the AI patiently.

  What should he sing? Something simple: that much was certain. Really, he told himself, all he had to be able to do was carry a tune in rhyme. Nothing he had read indicated that exceptional vocal gymnastics were called for.

  Oddly enough, the first thing that came to him was an ancient AAnn battle song that he had picked up, quite unintentionally, in the course of his similarly unintentional sojourn in an artists’ colony on Jast. Oh well, he thought. As good an example to begin with as anything, if a little inclined to the bloodthirsty. Clearing his throat, he raised his voice and began to hiss the several stanzas as best as he could remember them.

  When he had finished, he waited. The silent thrum of the ship enveloped him. He waited some more.

  “Well?” he finally prompted.

  “Still analyzing. I have nothing in my memory with which to compare your rendition. I suggest you try again. Perhaps this time a human song? Something with more vowels? I am afraid that your interpretation of AAnn singing reminds me more of steam escaping from an assortment of volcanic vents occasionally punctuated by two rocks being slammed together.”

  What to sing? Then he remembered an old song he had heard sung on a dock at Farefa’are’i. Taking a breath, he chose a section of streaked starfield to stand in for Clarity, and warbled.

  Au jardin de mon père, les lilas song fleuris.

  Au jardin de mon père, les lilas sont fleuris.

  Tous les oiseaux du monde viennent y faire leur nid.

  Auprés de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon, fait bon, fait bon.

  Auprés de ma blonde, qu’il fait bon dormir.

  Pip looked up from where she had been sleeping. A long silence ensued. “Still analyzing?” Flinx finally queried.

  “Finished. I pronounce you competent. Beyond that I am not equipped to say.”

  He frowned. “Why not? Your analytical capabilities are exceptional, even for an advanced AI.”

  “There are some things in the universe that do not lend themselves to mathematical parsing. It appears that song is one of them. However, by comparing your brief rendition against the modest library of similar material that resides in the depths of my memory among the other irrelevancies relating to human society, I can say with some confidence that you can carry a tune. Beyond that I am not equipped to accurately assess.”

  None of which really dealt with the most important component of his query, a frustrated Flinx realized. “Then, according to your best estimation, I should possibly with the aid of a translator be able to communicate with the Larians on their own terms?”

  “There is a reasonable probability,” the Teacher replied.

  Flinx shook his head. “Equivocation in an AI is maddening.”

  “Unreasonable expectations in a human are frustrating. And not just to an artificial intelligence.”

  As they transited great distance, he continued to try to get the ship to commit to a definite answer. Unable to do so, he found himself sitting in the command chair and brooding at the stars. Detecting his mood, Pip fluttered over from where she had been resting and settled herself possessively in his lap. Absently, he reached down to stroke the back of her head and upper body. She did not purr, made no noise at all, but he knew that of the three consciousnesses on board the Teacher, at least one of them was now nominally content.

  3

  ■ ■ ■

  A wet wind was blowing and Vashon Lek was depressed. Then he thought about the money he was going to make and he felt better.

  Every packet of dried lossii, every vial of concentrated ulunn nectar, every tincture of kalatic oil, contributed mightily to his ballooning credit file. His yield would have been doubled if not for the need to ship it offworld via semi-scrupulous middlemen and semilegal means. Each time his earnings were forced to pause between Largess and Earth in order to be further cleansed, remuneration for such sensitive ser
vices was required. Each time, a little additional revenue was shaved off the total like lamb for a gyro sandwich. But with each of these costly pass-throughs, a credit packet file became a little less suspicious, a tad less likely to draw unwanted attention. Until eventually what was left arrived in a storage facility in Namerica, under a fictitious identity he could access as easily as his own. Despite the cost of laundering, as long as he could maintain his highly unauthorized activities on Largess, that file would continue to grow.

  At first it had been simple enough. Proffer a little advice here, offer the use of a proscribed device there. Never a problem. His skills allowed him to effectively communicate his offers of help to a certain segment of the local population. The beauty of putting advanced technology together with less advanced species was that the former was like a drug to the latter. The more help he gave, the higher rose the demand and, subsequently, his credit balance.

  He had enmeshed himself in their own domestic scheming, and therefore had made himself irreplaceable.

  One day he would have to winkle his way out. Make it safely to the center of Borusegahm and from there to the station and its spaceport. The timing of such a drastic move would have to be just right. Otherwise his erstwhile friends and allies might come looking for him with malice in mind. With interstellar transit between Largess and anywhere else in the Commonwealth infrequent at best, he could not just park himself in the spaceport lounge and wait for the next ship. While impressed by contemporary technology and hungry for its advantages, the Larians with whom he worked were by no means awed. They were sophisticated enough to recognize the business end of a weapon. Once it was demonstrated for them, they learned very quickly how to use it. Vashon had no intention of becoming a test subject for Larian intuition.

  In fact, the only thing presently keeping him from leaving was the persistent business of greed. Each time he contemplated embarking on a final departure, those for whom he worked proffered yet another opportunity to enhance his burgeoning retirement fund. Without exception, every such offer had proven to be as lucrative as its predecessors. Fulfilling the relevant requirements had not caused him any especial difficulty.

  Until now. Until he’d been forced to order the killing of Preedir’s handmaiden.

  He’d had no choice. The female servant had been about to raise the alarm about her mistress’s abduction. Vashon repeatedly tried to tell himself that the resulting blood was on Zkerig’s webbed hands. It didn’t work. The Larian minion had done the cutting, but there was no getting around the fact that it was Vashon who had made the lethal decision.

  No choice; there had been no choice. Limited in number though they might be, if the local Commonwealth authorities had learned that he was the offworlder involved in an important cleaving of native politics, not to mention the fact that it had resulted in the killing of a local, they would have devoted every available resource to finding him and taking him into custody. Should they subsequently learn that he had been providing technical knowledge and occasional advanced artifacts to the same natives, the combination of offenses might be enough to get him sentenced to a partial mindwipe.

  And on top of everything else he had done, in addition to every other directive he had violated, he had with him a couple of guns.

  The one he wore in a holster at his waist was no rudimentary projectile weapon such as the primitive smooth-bore devices that were toted by the servants of the most important Larians. It was like nothing they had ever seen. It weighed far less than anything that came out of their crude armories, and parts of it flashed like mirrors in the sun. It was a neuronic pistol, and it was about as illegal a device as anything that could be revealed to the natives.

  Unleashing a tightly focused and precisely modulated charge, it could fatally disrupt the nervous system of anything from an insect to an elephant. There were only quasi-arthropods on Largess, and no elephants. But there were large, dangerous predators who, when contemplating a potential dinner, would not discriminate between an indigenous meal and some imported offworlder meat. He felt he needed a gun for his personal protection.

  The fact that it and the other advanced hand weapon he had with him were solely for his personal use would carry no weight with the authorities. If they learned he had not merely shown it to the natives but had actually used it against some of them, mindwipe to a greater or a lesser degree would be certain. If they learned that he had let locals use it, there wouldn’t be enough credit in a dozen of the Great Houses to mitigate his sentencing.

  Insofar as he could tell, though, these few isolated incidents remained a mystery to the Commonwealth authorities based at the station in Borusegahm Leeth. Only the natives who had been directly affected were aware of what had happened. And they wouldn’t talk about it, because those who had seen too much—and were not allies—were dead.

  While he could bemoan the awkward turn events had recently taken, he could take comfort in the knowledge that this hopefully final enterprise would generate sufficient proceeds for him to at last take his leave of this chilly and damp, if lucrative, world. Nor could he complain about his treatment at the flipper-hands of his employer, the Hobak of Minord.

  He had been given everything necessary to carry out the requested abduction. Save for the unfortunate death of the handmaiden, it had all gone well. All that remained now was to deliver Preedir ah nisa Leeh, Firstborn of the Hobak of Borusegahm Leeth, to Felelagh na Broon, and collect the disproportionately large final payment for the job.

  A slap on the other side of his cabin door drew his attention. “Enter,” he trilled. Though he carried a mechanical translator, he had not felt the need to use it for quite a while. Having spent some time now on Largess, Vashon considered himself reasonably fluent.

  It was Zkerig. Tralltag to the Hobak of Minord (Vashon had learned early on in his time on Largess that Larian names were as musical as their language), the underling who was second in command of the kidnapping expedition was taller than most of his brethren. Taller even than Vashon, though the human was below average for his kind. A single flexible shield fashioned from the shells of dozens of local crustaceans covered him from neck to thighs. In contrast to ceremonial armor, Zkerig’s current attire was stained brown and black. Business garb designed for unpleasant business, Vashon reflected.

  Those parts of the Tralltag’s body that were not clothed flashed iridescent in the light of the cabin’s oil lamp. The Larians were a strikingly colored species. Their dark, dense fur, no longer than a human fingernail paring, was mottled and splashed and striped with brilliant blue and green. Some Larians showed natural streaks and spots of gold, silver, and copper. Additional cosmetic coloring was also rampant. In a big town like Borusegahm Leeth, where the Firstborn was from, the population was a walking, shimmering rainbow.

  Zkerig had a complex yet primitive single-shot pistol holstered in the belt around one side of his almost invisible waist and the traditional hooked sword on the other. A form-fitting cap comprised of the single shell of the ukodu, a clam-like creature, protected his head. Short, stubby ears sprouted from two neatly cut holes in the chitinous chapeau. Filled with teeth, the snout protruded from the face and provided support for the flexible single nostril that ran the length of its dorsal side. The double-lidded eyes were large, dark, and limpid. They regarded Vashon unblinkingly.

  “Well, what is it, at this time of night, when the twin moons hide?” Vashon inquired of his visitor.

  Zkerig settled himself back on the tripod formed by his short legs and thick, flat, blunt-tipped tail. The latter as well as his large, spatulate, three-toed webbed feet were shod in tough amakril leather. A Larian could rest in such a position for hours without any need for a chair. Or, by means of three lines of tiny suckers, could link both legs tightly to the tail to form a single limb capable of propelling the sleek body through the cold water of Largess’s seas at speeds the fastest human swimmer could never hope to match.

  “I’m seeking some reassurance,” the Tralltag gro
wled in somber syncopation. “Success thus far is comforting for sure, but still we have to be safely going, since far from here lie Minord’s comforting walls.” The three long, limber fingers of one webbed hand gestured at Vashon’s waist: the place from which the human’s marvelous neuronic pistol rarely strayed. “Tales they tell of offworlders’ wondrous weapons, yet my life I place in the safety of rumors only. Would that before running full out could I see some proof of the truth, the reality, a certainty to instill.” His melodic line changed from querulous to sardonic.

  “Not that I question the truth of what I am told, but substance is better than reality, especially when lives are at stake.”

  No problem at all, Vashon thought to himself. A tough bloke, was Zkerig. The Hobak would not have sent anything less than his most reliable minion to back up Vashon. And to keep an eye on him. It was understandable that, having only heard what magical Commonwealth technology could do, Zkerig would want to see for himself before they made the dash for safety from Borusegahm Leeth.

  “Happy am I to allay your worries.” A naturally gifted tenor, Vashon felt his voice was at its best in the mornings. During the day he was careful to conserve his singspeech and preserve his vocal cords. That was not a problem for the Larians. Their vocal apparatus was as tough and versatile as the leather they favored for their footwear. “Pleasing to me, is it to vanquish, any lingering uncertainties.” Whereupon he drew the pistol from the holster at his waist, aimed it directly at the startled Tralltag, and fired.

  The weapon made a slight crackling sound as it was discharged. A measured burst struck the gaping Zkerig dead-center. His primitive chitinous armor offered no barrier to the invisible burst of energy. Dialed down and calibrated for the Larian nervous system, it dropped the Tralltag in his tracks.

  Walking over, an unhurried Vashon gazed appraisingly down at the twitching, writhing figure on the floor.

  “Highly adjustable is this weapon; so as to be gentle, so as to be nonlethal, so as sometimes to serve, only as a warning. Deadly can it be, if a slight re-tuning I do give it.” He held out the pistol so that the still-convulsing Zkerig could see it clearly. “Intelligence it possesses, of a type to your kind unknowing. Only for its owner who stands over you now will it fire. Only for I will it respond to orders given.” He reholstered it. “Blind I am not, but understanding I am. I see clearly the looks that you have given; of desire, of hunger, for this device of offworld killing. Take it you might, on some quiet night of my dreaming, but no good would it do you, without the required identification.”