Time is the Fire

by Connie Willis

  “And Johnny Mathis sang ‘Angels from the Realms of Glory,’” he said happily. “But the Hanukkah song, which they did respond to, was sung by the . . .” he read it off the CD case, “the Shalom Singers. That’s got to be it.” He began looking through the LPs again.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  “The Mormon Tabernacle Choir,” he said. “They’ve got to have recorded ‘Silent Night.’ We’ll play it for the Altairi, and if they fall asleep, we’ll know we’re on the right track.”

  “But they’re already asleep,” I pointed out, gesturing to where they stood looking like a week-old flower arrangement. “How—?”

  He was already digging again. He brought up a Cambridge Boys’ Choir album, pulled the LP out, and read the label, muttering, “I know it’s on here . . . Here it is.” He put it on, and a chorus of sweet boys’ voices sang, “‘Christians awake, salute the happy morn.’”

  The Altairi straightened immediately and glared at us. “You were right,” I said softly, but he wasn’t listening. He had the LP off the turntable and was reading the label again, muttering, “Come on, you have to have done ‘Silent Night.’ Everyone does ‘Silent Night.’” He flipped the LP over, said, “I knew it,” popped it back on the turntable, and dropped the needle expertly. “‘. . . and mild,’” the boys’ angelic voices sang, “‘sleep . . .’”

  The Altairi drooped over before the word was even out. “That’s definitely it!” I said. “That’s the common denominator.”

  He shook his head. “We need more data. It could just be a coincidence. We need to find a choral version of ‘Rise Up, Shepherd, and Follow.’ And ‘Sit Down, You’re Rocking the Boat.’ Where did you put Guys and Dolls?”

  “But that was a solo.”

  “The first part, the part we played them was a solo. Later on all the gamblers come in. We should have played them the whole song.”

  “We couldn’t, remember?” I said, handing it to him. “Remember the parts about dragging you under and drowning, not to mention gambling and drinking?”

  “Oh, right,” he said. He put headphones on, listened, and then unplugged them. “‘Sit down . . .’” a chorus of men’s voices sang lustily, and the Altairi sat down.

  We played choir versions of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth” and “Rise Up, Shepherds, and Follow.” The Altairi sat down and stood up. “You’re right,” he said after the Altairi knelt to the Platters singing “The First Noel.” “It’s the common denominator, all right. But why?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Maybe they can’t understand things said to them by fewer voices than a choir. That would explain why there are six of them. Maybe each one only hears certain frequencies, which singly are meaningless, but with six of them—”

  He shook his head. “You’re forgetting the Andrews Sisters. And Barenaked Ladies. And even if it is the choir aspect they’re responding to, it still doesn’t tell us what they’re doing here.”

  “But now we know how to get them to tell us,” I said, grabbing up The Holly Jolly Book of Christmas Songs. “Can you find a choir version of ‘Adeste Fideles’ in English?”

  “I think so,” he said. “Why?”

  “Because it’s got ‘we greet thee’ in it,” I said, running my fingers down the lyrics of “Good Christian Men, Rejoice.”

  “And there’s ‘Watchmen, Tell Us of the Night,’” he said. “And ‘great glad tidings tell.’ They’re bound to respond to one of them.”

  But they didn’t. Peter, Paul, and Mary ordered the Altairi to go tell (we blanked out the “on the mountain” part), but either the Altairi didn’t like folk music, or the Andrews Sisters had been a fluke.

  Or we had jumped to conclusions. When we tried the same song again, this time by the Boston Commons Choir, there was still no response. And none to choral versions of “Deck the Halls” (“while I tell”), “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” (“don’t you tell a single soul” minus “don’t” and “a single soul”). Or to “The Friendly Beasts,” even though all six verses had “tell” in them.

  Calvin thought the tense might be the problem and played parts of “Little St. Nick” (“tale” and “told”) and “The Carol of the Bells” (“telling”), but to no avail. “Maybe the word’s the problem,” I said. “Maybe they just don’t know the word ‘tell.’” But they didn’t respond to “say” or “saying” or “said,” to “messages” or to “proclaim.”

  “We must have been wrong about the choir thing,” Calvin said, but that wasn’t it, either. While he was in the bedroom putting his tux on for the Sing, I played them snatches of “The First Noel” and “Up on the Rooftop” from the Barenaked Ladies CD, and they knelt and jumped right on cue.

  “Maybe they think Earth’s a gym and this is an exercise class,” Calvin said, coming in as they were leaping to the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir singing “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” “I don’t suppose the word ‘calling’ had any effect on them.”

  “No,” I said, tying his bow tie, “and ‘I’m bringing you this simple phrase’ didn’t, either. Has it occurred to you that the music might not be having any effect at all, and they just happen to be sitting and leaping and kneeling at the same time as the words are being sung?”

  “No,” he said. “There’s a connection. If there wasn’t, they wouldn’t look so irritated that we haven’t been able to figure it out yet.”

  He was right. Their glares had, if anything, intensified, and their very posture radiated disapproval.

  “We need more data, that’s all,” he said, going to get his black shoes. “As soon as I get back, we’ll—” He stopped.

  “What is it?”

  “You’d better look at this,” he said, pointing at the TV. The screen was showing a photo of the ship. All the lights were on, and exhaust was coming out of assorted side vents. Calvin grabbed the remote and turned it up.

  “It is now believed that the Altairi have returned to their ship and are preparing to depart,” the newscaster said. I glanced over at the Altairi. They were still standing there. “Analysis of the ignition cycle indicates that takeoff will be in less than six hours.”

  “What do we do now?” I asked Calvin.

  “We figure this out. You heard them. We’ve got six hours till blast-off.”

  “But the Sing—”

  He handed me my coat. “We know it’s got something to do with choirs, and I’ve got every kind you could want. We’ll take the Altairi to the convention center and hope we think of something on the way.”

  We didn’t think of anything on the way. “Maybe I should take them back to their ship,” I said, pulling into the parking lot. “What if I cause them to get left behind?”

  “They are not E.T.,” he said.

  I parked at the service entrance, got out, and started to slide the back door of the van open. “No, leave them there,” Calvin said. “We’ve got to find a place to put them before we take them in. Lock the car.”

  I did, even though I doubted if it would do any good, and followed Calvin through a side door marked “Choirs Only” and through a maze of corridors lined with rooms marked “St. Peter’s Boys Choir,” “Red Hat Glee Club,” “Denver Gay Men’s Chorus,” “Sweet Adelines Show Chorus,” “Mile High Jazz Singers.” There was a hubbub in the front of the building, and when we crossed the main corridor, we could see people in gold and green and black robes milling around talking.

  Calvin opened several doors one after the other, ducked inside the rooms, shutting the door after him, and then re-emerged, shaking his head. “We can’t let the Altairi hear the Messiah, and you can still hear the noise from the auditorium,” he said. “We need someplace soundproof.”

  “Or farther away,” I said, leading the way down the corridor and turning down a side hall. And running smack into his seventh-graders coming out of one of the meeting rooms. Mrs. Carlson was videotaping them, and another mother was attempting to line them up to go in, but as soon as they
saw Calvin, they clustered around him saying, “Mr. Ledbetter, where have you been? We thought you weren’t coming,” and “Mr. Ledbetter, Mrs. Carlson says we have to turn our cell phones off, but can’t we just have them on vibrate?” and “Mr. Ledbetter, Shelby and I were supposed to go in together, but she says she wants to be partners with Danika.”

  Calvin ignored them. “Kaneesha, could you hear any of the groups rehearsing when you were in getting dressed?”

  “Why?” Belinda asked. “Did we miss the call to go in?”

  “Could you, Kaneesha?” he persisted.

  “A little bit,” she said.

  “That won’t work, then,” he said to me. “I’ll go check the room at the end. Wait here.” He sprinted along the hall.

  “You were at the mall that day,” Belinda said accusingly to me. “Are you and Mr. Ledbetter going out?”

  We may all be going out together—with a bang—if we don’t figure out what the Altairi are doing, I thought. “No,” I said.

  “Are you hooking up?” Chelsea asked.

  “Chelsea!” Mrs. Carlson said, horrified.

  “Well, are you?”

  “Aren’t you supposed to be lining up?” I asked.

  Calvin came back at a dead run. “It should work,” he said to me. “It seems fairly soundproof.”

  “Why does it have to be soundproof?” Chelsea asked.

  “I bet it’s so nobody can hear them making out,” Belinda said, and Chelsea began making smooching noises.

  “Time to go in, ladies,” he said in his choir director’s voice, “line up,” and he really was amazing. They immediately formed pairs and began making a line.

  “Wait till everybody’s gone into the auditorium,” he said, pulling me aside, “and then go get them and bring them in. I’ll do a few minutes’ intro of the orchestra and the organizing committee so the Altairi won’t hear any songs while you’re getting them to the room. There’s a table you can use to barricade the door so nobody can get in.”

  “And what if the Altairi try to leave?” I asked. “A barricade won’t stop them, you know.”

  “Call me on my cell phone, and I’ll tell the audience there’s a fire drill or something. Okay? I’ll make this as short as I can.” He grinned. “No ‘Twelve Days of Christmas.’ Don’t worry, Meg. We’ll figure this out.”

  “I told you she was his girlfriend.”

  “Is she, Mr. Ledbetter?”

  “Let’s go, ladies,” he said and led them down the hall and into the auditorium. Just as the auditorium doors shut on the last stragglers, my cell phone rang. It was Dr. Morthman, calling to say, “You can stop looking. The Altairi are in their ship.”

  “How do you know? Have you seen them?” I asked, thinking, I knew I shouldn’t have left them in the car.

  “No, but the ship’s begun the ignition process, and it’s going faster than NASA previously estimated. They’re now saying it’s no more than four hours to takeoff. Where are you?”

  “On my way back,” I said, trying not to sound like I was running out to the parking lot and unlocking the van, which, thank goodness, was at least still there and intact.

  “Well, hurry it up,” Dr. Morthman snapped. “The press is here. You’re going to have to explain to them exactly how you let the Altairi get away.” I pulled open the van’s door.

  The Altairi weren’t inside.

  Oh, no. “I blame this entire debacle on you,” Dr. Morthman said. “If there are international repercussions—”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said, hung up, and turned to run around to the driver’s side.

  And collided with the Altairi, who had apparently been standing behind me the entire time. “Don’t scare me like that,” I said. “Now come on,” and led them rapidly into the convention center, past the shut doors of the auditorium, where I could hear talking but not singing, thank goodness, and along the long hall to the room Calvin had indicated.

  It was empty except for the table Calvin had mentioned. I herded the Altairi inside and then tipped the table on its side, pushed it in front of the door, wedging it under the doorknob, and leaned my ear against it to see if I could hear any sound from the auditorium, but Calvin had been right. I couldn’t hear anything, and they should have started by now.

  And now what? With takeoff only four hours away, I needed to take advantage of every second, but there was nothing in the room I could use—no piano or CD player or LPs. We should have used his seventh-graders’ dressing room, I thought. They’d at least have had iPods or something.

  But even if I played the Altairi hundreds of Christmas carols being sung by a choir, and they responded to them all—bowing, decking halls, dashing through snow in one-horse open sleighs, following yonder stars—I’d still be no closer to figuring out why they were here or why they’d decided to leave. Or why they’d taken the very loud tap-dancing chorus of 42nd Street singing “Sleep in heavenly peace” as a direct order. If they even knew what the word “sleep”—or “seated” or “spin” or “blink”—meant.

  Calvin had surmised they could only hear words sung to them with more than one voice, but that couldn’t be it. Someone hearing a word for the first time would have no idea what it meant, and they’d never heard “‘all seated on the ground’” till that day in the mall. They had to have heard the word before to have known what it meant, and they’d only have heard it spoken. Which meant they could hear spoken words as well as sung ones.

  They could have read the words, I thought, remembering the Rosetta Stone and the dictionaries Dr. Short had given them. But even if they’d somehow taught themselves to read English, they wouldn’t know how it was pronounced. They wouldn’t have recognized it when they heard it spoken. The only way they could do that was by hearing the spoken word. Which meant they’d been listening to and understanding every word we’d said for the past nine months. Including Calvin’s and my conversations about them slaying babies and destroying the planet. No wonder they were leaving.

  But if they understood us, then that meant one of two things—they were either unwilling to talk to us or were incapable of speaking. Had their sitting down and their other responses been an attempt at sign language?

  No, that couldn’t be it, either. They could have responded just as easily to a spoken “sit” and done it months earlier. And if they were trying to communicate, wouldn’t they have given Calvin and me some hint we were on the right—or the wrong—track instead of just standing there with that we-are-not-amused glare? And I didn’t believe for a moment those expressions were an accident of nature. I knew disapproval when I saw it. I’d watched Aunt Judith too many years not to—

  Aunt Judith. I took my cell phone out of my pocket and called my sister Tracy. “Tell me everything you can remember about Aunt Judith,” I said when she answered.

  “Has something happened to her?” she said, sounding alarmed. “When I talked to her last week she—”

  “Last week?” I said. “You mean Aunt Judith’s still alive?”

  “Well, she was last week when we had lunch.”

  “Lunch? With Aunt Judith? Are we talking about the same person? Dad’s Aunt Judith? The Gorgon?”

  “Yes, only she’s not a Gorgon. She’s actually very nice when you get to know her.”

  “Aunt Judith,” I said, “the one who always glared disapprovingly at everybody?”

  “Yes, only she hasn’t glared at me in years. As I say, when you get to know her—”

  “And exactly how did you do that?”

  “I thanked her for my birthday present.”

  “And—?” I said. “That can’t have been all. Mom always made both of us thank her nicely for our presents.”

  “I know, but they weren’t proper thank-yous. ‘A prompt handwritten note expressing gratitude is the only proper form of thanks,’” Tracy said, obviously quoting. “I was in high school, and we had to write a thank-you letter to someone for class. She’d just sent me my birthday card with the do
llar in it, so I wrote her, and the next day she called and gave me this long lecture about the importance of good manners and how shocking it was that no one followed the most basic rules of etiquette anymore and how she was delighted to see that at least one young person knew how to behave, and then she asked me if I’d like to go see Les Miz with her, and I bought a copy of Emily Post, and we’ve gotten along great ever since. She sent Evan and me a sterling silver fish slice when we got married.”

  “For which you sent her a handwritten thank-you note,” I said absently. Aunt Judith had been glaring because we were boorish and unmannered. Was that why the Altairi looked so disapproving, because they were waiting for the equivalent of a handwritten thank-you note from us?

  If that was the case, we were doomed. Rules of etiquette are notoriously illogical and culture-specific, and there was no intergalactic Emily Post for me to consult. And I had, oh, God, less than two hours till liftoff.

  “Tell me exactly what she said that day she called you,” I said, unwilling to give up the idea that she was somehow the key.

  “It was eight years ago—”

  “I know. Try to remember.”

  “Okay . . . there was a lot of stuff about gloves and how I shouldn’t wear white shoes after Labor Day and how I shouldn’t cross my legs. ‘Well-bred young ladies sit with their ankles crossed.’”

  Had the Altairi’s sitting down in the mall been an etiquette lesson in the proper way to sit? It seemed unlikely, but so did Aunt Judith’s refusal to speak to people because of the color of their shoes on certain calendar dates.

  “. . . and she said if I got married, I needed to send out engraved invitations,” Tracy said. “Which I did. I think that’s why she gave us the fish slice.”

  “I don’t care about the fish slice. What did she say about your thank-you note?”

  “She said, ‘Well, it’s about time, Tracy. I’d nearly given up hope of anyone in your family showing any signs of civilized behavior.’”

  Civilized behavior. That was it. The Altairi, like Aunt Judith sitting in our living room glaring, had been waiting for a sign that we were civilized. And singing—correction, group singing—was that sign. But was it an arbitrary rule of etiquette, like white shoes and engraved invitations, or was it a symbol of something else? I thought of Calvin telling his chattering seventh-graders to line up, and the milling, giggling, chaotic muddle of girls coming together in an organized, beautifully behaved, civilized line.