The Tears of the Singers

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “Doctor, we’re all going to die if we don’t do something. That phenomenon is only a few hundred kilometers from the sun. If it goes we’ll all die—you, me, the Taygetians, everyone!”

  “What makes you think you can succeed now when every other attempt has failed?” Spock asked.

  “Fear,” Maslin said succinctly. “It’s a pretty damn good motivator for a creative insight.”

  “That is not logical.”

  “Yes, and that’s why I’m a musician, and you’re not. In spite of your great technical ability you could never be an artist, because at base, once all the mathematics and the theory is removed there is only art, and that comes from the soul and the heart, not the mind.” He made a few more adjustments with the synthesizer, and fed back in the Taygetian language program that he and Spock had so laboriously created. “I understand most of the basic grammar and vocabulary now so our only problem is finding a way to talk to them—to make them understand.”

  “Sounds like a mighty long shot,” McCoy said quietly.

  “It is, but Doctor, it’s the only shot we’ve got.” He began to play, a hauntingly beautiful improvisation based on the Taygetian song, and the cubs returned, drawn as he had known they would be by the heartrending music.

  Uhura stood rigidly at Kali’s side, watching the play of Maslin’s long fingers across the keyboards, the way muscles and tendons tightened in his neck when he threw back his head and half closed his eyes as he concentrated on the music he was creating. She had seen McCoy remonstrating with the composer, and she knew with a deadly certainty what had been said. She had also seen Maslin’s dismissive gesture, and her heart and mind were filled with an anguish so great that it was almost a physical pain.

  No, please no, she thought frantically. She wanted to rush to his side, beg him not to make this effort, but she knew it was useless. Men like Kirk, or Maslin, or Spock followed only the dictates of their consciences, and acted upon their own driving codes of honor and duty. Pleas about love and need could distress and upset them, but never, never turn them from that sacred dream that they all served in varying ways.

  “Sometimes I think it is a curse to love such men,” Kali said softly. The Klingon woman had recovered herself, and now stood once more proud and controlled at Uhura’s side.

  “And you would know, don’t you?”

  “Alas, yes.”

  “And how do you handle it?”

  “By loving and supporting him, and praying to the gods to return him safe to me when he has finished following his dreams.”

  “But why must our dreams always be so different?” Uhura whispered miserably.

  “Go to him, give him what help you can,” Kali said softly, and gave Uhura a gentle shove. Uhura walked quickly to the synthesizer and, standing behind Maslin, placed her hands possessively on his shoulders. He threw her a quick smile and returned to his music, and she stood quietly holding him as if by her very physical presence she could keep him safe.

  Kali watched for several moments, then walked away to sit quietly staring out to sea while the song wove its mysterious pattern about her, and brought some measure of ease to her wounded heart.

  “Respond! God damn you! Why won’t you respond!” Guy suddenly shouted while beating his fists desperately on the edge of the synthesizer.

  “Hey, take it easy, Mr. Maslin,” Ragsdale said, placing a soothing hand on the smaller man’s shoulders. “Here, have some tea, and take a break.”

  “No time. We have no time to take a break,” Maslin muttered, but he allowed the security chief to assist him off the bench, and over to a camp stool.

  The uninjured and ambulatory members of the landing party had gathered in an encouraging group about the synthesizer. Also joining the humans were the cubs. They sat in a polite and very interested circle about the synthesizer, but nothing Maslin tried drew any response from the Taygetians. They sat like cuddly little stuffed animals on a toy store’s shelves, theft mouths tipped in that never-ending smile, and their blue eyes happy and alert.

  At sunset a mournful wind had risen which occasionally sent particles of sand stinging into theft faces, and whipped their parkas about their trembling bodies. Only one moon was up this night, and it raced across the sky with the clouds scudding now and then across its pale, luminous face. It was terribly cold, and Spock had ordered that every available heater and all the lights be placed around the instrument. Maslin looked fragile, almost transparent, and the Vulcan had begun to fear that he would not live long enough to find the solution that might save the Enterprise.

  Ragsdale thrust a steaming mug of tea into Maslin’s hands, and Uhura wrapped her arms about his slight body, holding him close as she would a child. He sighed, and rested his head on her shoulder. His eyes were two hollows of blackness, and McCoy edged closer to Spock.

  “I can’t give him any more cordrazine.”

  “I know.”

  “He’s dying before our eyes.”

  “We are all staring into that void, Doctor. If Mr. Maslin’s efforts can save us then we must allow him to continue.”

  “Better one than all of us, huh?” McCoy grunted.

  “It is the more—”

  “Don’t say it, Spock,” McCoy said. “I really don’t think I can stand to hear that word one more time.”

  “Why won’t they respond to me?” Maslin asked, his voice small as he huddled within the folds of his parka. “I’m doing everything right, I know I am.”

  “I’m sure you are,” Uhura said, stroking his hair. “Maybe they just can’t relate to us.”

  “But music is music,” he objected, struggling a bit to sit up.

  “I know, I know,” she said soothingly as she would to a frightened foal, and held him still, trying to force him to relax. “Guy, it’s not your fault.”

  “Then whose fault is it?” he demanded. “I’m the big hotshot who was supposed to solve all the problems!”

  “Without you we wouldn’t even have gotten this far.”

  “I don’t want to die on this ball of dirt,” he suddenly whispered. “I want to go home, marry you, write my symphony.”

  Uhura swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “You won’t, and you will.”

  “Then you will marry me?” he asked, his face recovering a measure of that devil-may-care expression that she had learned to love.

  “Did you ever doubt it?”

  “You wouldn’t have married me that first night.”

  “No,” she agreed with a laugh. “I thought you were abominable.”

  “And now?” he asked, his eyes pleading with her.

  “I love you,” she said simply, and then looked about with embarrassment, hoping that they hadn’t been overheard. She noted with relief that the rest of the landing party had drawn politely away from them.

  He reached up and cupped her cheek in one hand. She turned her head to press a quick kiss into the palm of his hand, and was alarmed and upset by the icy coldness of his skin. She quickly gathered his hands in hers, and began to breathe on them.

  “No,” he said, pulling his hands free, and sliding them around her body. “Give me that breath where it will do me some good.”

  She nodded, and they kissed. It was a desperate, clinging embrace, and in that moment she wished that they could just forget this desperate struggling to survive. All she wanted was to crawl away into their tent, and lie in his arms until death came to take them both. Tears burned in her eyes, and she could feel the warm trail as they overflowed and slid down her cheeks. He kissed away the salty moisture, then held her face between his hands, and stared at her.

  “Don’t cry, my darling. We don’t have the time for that kind of self-indulgence.”

  “What should I do then?” she asked, forcing a smile to her lips.

  “Sing for me.”

  “What would you like to hear?”

  “Something I wrote—naturally,” he said with a flash of his old sardonic humor.

  “Natural
ly.”

  She cast about, and finally decided on a delicate little arietta that he had written for her in those first days when he had come aboard the Enterprise. He had used a bit of Italian verse from the seventeenth century for the text, and she loved the little song with a passion surpassing any other piece of music. She cradled him once more in her arms, and began to sing. The landing party gathered around to listen, and even the cubs ceased their constant warblings and joined in the circle, listening with the greatest of interest.

  “Lasci ancore posare un stanco, un stanco.” Her rich, warm voice reached a long sustained note, and the pure tone spun like a crystal ball supported by the arching waters of a fountain. There was a melodic sigh from the Taygetian cubs, and Guy’s eyes flew open.

  “My God! My God! My God!” he kept repeating as he struggled to his feet.

  “What? What is it?” Uhura cried, alarmed by his agitation. She leaped to her feet and caught him by the arm, trying to stop his frenzied pacings.

  “That’s it, that’s it.”

  “What?” Kali broke in.

  “What’s it?” came a chorus of voices.

  “Please calm down!” came an order from McCoy that was ignored.

  “Don’t you see?” Maslin demanded, whirling on Spock and reaching out for the Vulcan with desperate hands. “We’ve been working instrumentally! Their whole orientation is vocal. They thought we were making pretty sounds at them, but it didn’t have any meaning, couldn’t have. After all, we weren’t talking.”

  “Are you sure?” Spock asked cautiously.

  “It has to be. Damn it! I understand that language, and every bit of logic and intelligence tells me they ought to be responding. So why aren’t they? Simple. We weren’t using the right medium. Besides, we’ve got empirical proof.”

  “Oh?” Spock raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  Maslin grabbed Uhura, and yanked her over to face the Vulcan. “Her! They responded to Uhura’s singing. They don’t understand the words since it’s another language, but they recognized it as communication.”

  “Come on, Spock,” McCoy urged, moving in to join the debate. “It’s at least worth a try.”

  “I was not hesitating because I doubted the efficacy of such an attempt, Doctor, but because I was trying to determine the most effective way to make the attempt.”

  “Simple,” Maslin said, walking Uhura over to the synthesizer. “Uhura sings into the synthesizer. The machine translates her sounds and words into Taygetian, and … and well, we’re home free.”

  “Perhaps. But let us not forget that the Taygetians are also telepathic creatures.”

  “Then we’ll think real hard while she sings,” Maslin said impatiently. “But what ever we do, let’s for God’s sake get on with it.”

  “Very well.”

  “I can’t just sing cold like this,” Uhura protested.

  “I’ll improvise,” Maslin said, sliding onto the bench. “You follow. We’ve done it often enough before.”

  “Words? How about some text? It’s a little hard to just start babbling in song about what’s going on.”

  “True. Bear with me for a moment.” He ripped a sheet of composition paper from the notebook that rested on the synthesizer, and began to scribble. “How about some help?” he called to the rest of the party. “Any of you good at jingles?”

  “Dear gods what a task,” Kali said, joining him and Uhura on the bench. “What shall we say?”

  “We’ll want to keep it simple since we’ll just be speaking pidgen as far as they’re concerned.”

  “Start with the phenomenon,” Spock said, moving in.

  “Then my people,” Kali offered.

  “The battle,” Ragsdale suggested, becoming excited.

  “And then the loss of the ships into the phenomenon,” said McCoy, adding his bit.

  “And finally we’ll ask them to return our people,” Uhura concluded soberly.

  “All of our people,” Kali added with a challenging look to the humans.

  “But they’ll just start attacking us again,” Ragsdale protested.

  “Not if my husband can get back to his ship and reassert control.” She paused and looked about at the alien faces. “I have friends and companions on those ships. I would not have them all die because of a few evil men.”

  “Very well,” Spock said, seeing that Kali was adamant upon this point. “We will ask for the return of all of the ships.”

  “Jesus, we may as well try explaining the ascent of man, the conquest of space and the founding of the Federation,” Maslin muttered sourly as he stared down at his scribbled notes.

  “What other choice do we have?” Kali reminded him quietly.

  “Good point. Okay, let’s get to it.”

  It took two hours, but at last they had something that basically scanned. Maslin read it over several more times, made a few changes, and then pulled a face.

  “Yeats will no doubt spin in his grave, but maybe it will fly,” the composer said as Uhura twitched the paper from his hands, and moved away to study the words in privacy.

  “Fortunately this isn’t an English comp class,” McCoy said. “Besides it might sound better in Taygetian.”

  “I doubt it. You know how horrible things usually sound when they’re translated.”

  “Mr. Maslin, at this time esthetics are not our major concern.”

  “You’re right, Spock, I’m sorry. I guess I’m just being sensitive.” He gave a self-deprecating little smile. “But you can’t really blame me. This is the first time that my music has ever been given quite such a premiere.”

  “Let’s do it,” Uhura said, stepping back to the group. Her face was tight with strain.

  “We’ll use a simple ABA form,” he said to her. “This will be the basic theme.” He turned to the instrument, and played a quick, agitated melody that seemed to embody the desperation of their plight. “We’ll then modulate into minor for the central section, and then back to the major key when you ask them for help.”

  “Play it one more time, please,” Uhura said.

  He obliged, and Uhura stood with her eyes half-closed, one hand beating time on her thigh, and occasionally humming through a tricky or difficult section. They finished, and Maslin gave her an inquiring look. She nodded and, gripping the verses tightly in one hand, stepped to the side of the synthesizer. He handed her a translator that was hooked to the memory banks of the synthesizer. Her sounds would be routed through the computer, translated into Taygetian, and sent on to the listening cubs.

  A hush fell over the assembled people as they waited for this final, desperate test of their theory. The sun was just beginning to rise, touching the peaks of the crystal cliffs with opalescent fire, and turning the wind-tossed clouds into billowing masses of pink and amber.

  Maslin improvised an introduction, Uhura drew in a deep preparatory breath, and began to sing.

  Hear oh Singers, gather near

  Heed and help us in our hour.

  For danger threatens

  And death draws near.

  There was a convulsive stir from the cubs, and they began an agitated yelping that had little resemblance to their usual melodic murmurings. Uhura faltered, then picked up the melody and went on.

  In darkness, silent growing

  The rainbow colors dance and swirl

  All it touches are lost to living.

  Sun is threatened, soon it dies.

  She held out her hand, indicating the rising sun, and in the following verses tried to describe the phenomenon and its terrible power. She went on through the arrival of the Enterprise and the Klingons, the battle that had lost all the ships. By now the cubs were singing an agitated and complex counterpoint to her song that Spock was carefully recording on his tricorder. She reached the end, and made her plea for help with Guy and Kali joining their voices to hers.

  Maslin, making one last desperate attempt for understanding, reached out in some unexplainable fashion, and there was a moment
of disorientation as he felt his mind met and captured by the Taygetian cubs. Music seemed to be hammering into his skull. He felt the world spinning about him, and pain exploded behind his eyes, but he hung on because he understood. They were somehow communicating.

  “People! You are people!” came a musical cry from a cub. Guy looked down to find one of the brighter, more aggressive cubs reared up next to the synthesizer with his front flippers resting on the bench.

  Guy grabbed the translator out of Uhura’s hands, ignoring her look of shock, for he was too busy searching about for the proper sounds. He had spent so much time with the Taygetian language that it was very familiar to him, and he had a very strong understanding of the tongue. Nonetheless, it was a very different matter to speak such a language, and he took his time, not wanting to make an error at this critical juncture.

  “Yes, we are people,” he sang while playing along with one hand on the synthesizer. “And we have come to help you.”

  “But you are asking us for help,” the cub sang, puzzled.

  “Yes, that is true, for we have lost our people to the space/time vortex. But I tell you now that if our people do not return to find a solution to this danger all of us will die. The vortex will eat the sun, and Taygeta will become a ball of ice.”

  “How can the sun not be? It would take the power of a thousand-----to remove the sun.”

  Guy puzzled over the unfamiliar sound, but he had no framework, so he gave up on the missing word. “Nonetheless, it can be done. The vortex touches physical objects that exist in this space and time, and sweeps them into … otherwhere,” he finally said for lack of a better word. “I myself have seen this happen. The inner world that orbits next to the sun is gone.” There was a howl of dismay from the cubs, and Maslin realized that whatever the Taygetians might be they were definitely not primitives where astronomy was concerned. They were obviously very familiar with their own solar system.

  It took a long time, for there were moments when Guy simply couldn’t understand, or times when he produced some odd sound that left the cubs totally bewildered. There was also the insatiable curiosity of the cubs themselves. They kept changing the subject and wandering far afield as they asked questions about the humans: how they lived, where they had come from, how they had gotten there. Guy could have screamed with frustration, but he forced himself to be patient, knowing this was not the time for him to display anything other than the most even of tempers. At last the cubs seemed satisfied, and willing to return to the subject of the Enterprise.