Strange New Worlds X

by Dean Wesley Smith

  “She’ll take good care of him,” Trip murmured, his eyes slipping shut.

  “A mythical ‘visit to death’, do you think?” Phlox asked the captain.

  Archer shrugged. “Maybe it’s as simple as … he misses her.”

  Trip chuckled softly. “Lizzie always liked me in gray….”

  Archer and Phlox stared at him, as his breathing slowed and deepened, signaling that he had fallen asleep.

  When Trip awoke hours later, he had no memory of the dream, or Elizabeth, or the man in gray who looked like him. In fact, his last memory was of a neuropressure session with T’Pol the night before the accident in engineering. Of course, he had no knowledge of Sim, who had lived and died while Trip was in a coma.

  Archer and Phlox were left to wonder. But they took comfort in the intriguing possibility that the dream might have been something more.

  Universal Chord

  Carolyn Winifred

  THIRD PRIZE

  Carolyn Winifred lives in Vermont and has been a Star Trek fan since the seventies reruns. Her various employers contributed time and computers to forward her writing, and her family has always been encouraging. This will be the first work they actually get to read! She would like to thank Paula and Margaret and Mother Nature, without whose actions the vote might have been very different.

  S he hadn’t thought this through. Of course the rest of the audience would be human. The inadequacy of the ventilation system was becoming noticeable. Having arrived promptly, she had taken a seat close to the stage. Behind her now all the small tables and chairs were occupied. To make her way out would be very disruptive. Her first time among humans and she already wished to leave.

  “It’s packed. I love this intimate setting thing.” The woman at the very front table voiced her opinion unasked.

  T’Pol did not have a chance to respond. The lighting had been barely adequate when she entered; now the lights went down completely. Various colored lights illuminated the stage. The audience exploded in applause and yells as figures emerged from the back curtain.

  T’Pol had to chasten herself a third time. Quite a bit of time had gone by since she had first heard the music. She had not recalled humans aged faster than Vulcans. Their lifespan was less then half the Vulcan average. Taking center stage was an elderly man with a trim white beard. Another man, of equal age, as swarthy as the other was pale, bounded across the stage. He picked up a stringed instrument from a stand. At the far side a man had taken a seat behind a long, flat box on thin legs. The deep lines of his face were accentuated by a spotlight. The percussionist was obscured behind a large set-up.

  Then, out of a hushed silence, suddenly came music.

  T’Pol was relieved to find age had not affected the deep, rich voice she remembered. She was familiar only with the one song, but composers usually chose to work on a theme or elaborate on one that had proven to have resonance with an audience.

  When she had first been introduced to their music she had been unfamiliar with the language. Now she found she still could not make much sense of the lyrics. Disappointment was illogical, but, somehow, as something to experience, the song spoke of strength gained. It was the sigh before each chorus. “Ah, disappointment.” He seemed to put a long life into each expression of regret. Surely there was knowledge to be gained by the experience.

  At the end of the piece all the cheers and applause were acknowledged with a simple, “Thank you, grazie,” from the singer.

  Immediately they launched into the next selection. T’Pol kept anticipating the singer would begin singing, but the song was completely instrumental. She missed the voice, initially, but the darkness of the venue became the vastness of space. The small white lights on the ceiling were stars. The beams of colored lights were nebulae and interstellar gas. They made the background noise, the radio emissions of stars. The musician closest to her produced rapid popping sounds on his twelve-stringed instrument. The man at the box manipulated it with his fingers, creating the long distorted sound waves of solar wind. And they made music. The box released sounds sometimes like a stringed instrument, sometimes a wind or percussive instrument, its almost Vulcan-like master calm and seemingly unaffected. The other player roamed the stage, almost distracting in his wanderings, but musically, a superb technician. The singer’s six-string instrument played the lower notes. Either the percussionist was not human, but was of some species whose eyes were protruding and black, or he was human and wearing small dark goggles. He was not simply marking the beat, but adding tonal color with rattles and cymbals.

  If there was sound in space, it would be this.

  The audience was very still and focused on listening. They erupted in applause as soon as the band stopped playing.

  “I love you,” the woman at the front table called out.

  “Like the song says, love the planet you’re with.”

  In the brief pauses between songs the audience called out various titles. Some asked for the piece she knew. T’Pol did not join in the calls. It seemed a crude way to conduct a concert. And which piece the band chose to perform next did not seem to relate in any way to what was called for.

  “You can’t have the old ones until you’ve had the new ones.”

  “Newer,” the drummer quipped.

  “Newest, available for purchase at the back of the hall. Please indulge yourselves.”

  They managed to create many sound and vocal layers live in front of her as she watched. There was no reliance on machines to create the complexity, other than the instruments in their hands. The singer and the sitting man were blending their voices, smooth and smoothest.

  Stars were not like that at all, as if they were an actual item one could touch. Nonetheless, she was shivering. Was there some trick involved in this?

  If there was a voice of eternity, it would be his, like honey and wine. She was back in zero gravity training. The sense of inner self one was encouraged to concentrate on when left out in space in only a spacesuit. Time faded in such scenarios. His voice was her inner voice talking to her, explaining it all to her. She knew she wouldn’t be able to convey the understanding later. It was just this moment, alone in the cosmos, and everything fit together perfectly.

  They were carrying on a conversation via their instruments, across the stage, each bent studiously over their instruments. They were not very visually engaging. How Vulcan, really. She admired their skill. Every Vulcan child learned an instrument—the physics and mathematics of music were interesting subjects. Joy in playing music, beyond the satisfaction of perfect performance, was not encouraged.

  Listening, she forgot to watch. Colors and stars swirled before her. They played piece after piece, sometimes with lyrics, sometimes instrumental. She traveled all over the universe with them.

  “It’s not a gig in America until somebody yells out ‘Hey, Marco,’” the vocalist intoned.

  A big grin lit up the wandering musician’s face and he bowed to a swell of applause.

  With a gracious nod the singer stepped back beside the drums and gave center stage to Marco.

  Marco sang of chromium needles and basket cases. Though, as T’Pol understood it, a basket and a case were essentially the same thing. His voice was rough and slightly off-key, but he sang with the passion of a Klingon Basai master. His topknot was rapidly disintegrating. Long hair, much of it gray, whipped around as he moved his head. He curled over his instrument, alternately playing it with his fingers and with a plectrum. He put the plectrum in his teeth when not using it, but often simply dropped it. Obscured behind a box a slim hand was reaching out from the side of the stage, always there with another plectrum as needed. He ended the song almost bent double. His hand on the strings was a blur.

  The response was ecstatic. If her hands were beginning to hurt, from clapping politely, the rest of the audience must have bleeding hands.

  There were more calls for the song she knew.

  “This is not a greatest hits tour.”

&nbs
p; “Greatest hit,” Marco spoke as he wandered behind the singer.

  “Ode to Joy,” someone in the crowd yelled out.

  “Really?” the singer laughed.

  “Not my anthem,” the drummer spoke up.

  “You know, we’re not really a Euro band. Piqué and I were born in countries that don’t exist anymore.”

  “Ex-grunts of ex-countries of an ex-Hegemony,” the keyboardist Piqué spoke quite despairingly.

  “Aren’t we all supposed to be part of one big happy family now?”

  Laughter, some of it uneasy, came from the audience.

  “I’ll take you in and we’ll be a big happy family,” the drummer said.

  “Thank you, your enthusiasm supports me. We try to keep it under wraps, but Tyg is Australian.” The three others turned with suspicious looks to the drummer, who gave a somewhat sinister impression to T’Pol, with the goggles and trim dark beard and sharp grin.

  “And of course Marco, our American.”

  “No comprendre Ingles,” was Marco’s response.

  T’Pol noted the outmoded allegiances lingering in the general populace. Earth was united under one government, had been for some time, but had suffered severe provincialism, and still clung to some regional differences. The High Command reported often having to deal with delays caused by internal dissension.

  “War hero.” T’Pol thought it was the same voice calling out.

  Marco’s movements stopped abruptly.

  “Guitar hero, now, and we thank him very much.” The singer’s soothing voice relaxed Marco.

  “Old soldiers never die.”

  “We smell that way.” Piqué’s response to the audience member echoed T’Pol’s thought.

  “I’ve had death. Give me individuality. The Honorable Eskey Inglesei, member for Bohemia.” With that the singer led into another song featuring stately vocal delivery from Inglesei and Marco together. The rough and the smooth.

  “This is a great going away song, and we’re going away now.” The way Inglesei stepped back indicated that the piece would be instrumental. He stood, half turned to the drummer, eyes closed, face calm. T’Pol was not aware humans could look so calm. The keyboards were supplying the melody, the bass and drums a steady pulse. The guitarist was picking at her brain as he picked at his guitar, reaching out and tapping her on the forehead. The music threatened to invade her thoughts. Sometimes the sound came from the left, sometimes from the right. She tried to maintain focus on determining the exact location, but ended up floating away.

  Inglesei said quickly, “You’ve been a great audience. Grazie. Good night.” Piqué shook hands with people near his corner of the stage. The woman in front of T’Pol shouted, “I love you,” again. Marco shouted “We love you.” He put his guitar back on its stand and left the stage.

  The concert was over, and they had not even played the one piece T’Pol had come to hear. She had checked the Earth database, and it was the only piece they were known for. The other pieces they had played had been excellent, but she was surprised they had left out their best known work.

  She clapped politely for a moment then stood up to leave. She confronted a wall of humans. Everyone else had left their seats and crowded closer to the stage. They were beginning to rhythmically clap and yell. She turned back, the lights were still low, but the stage was empty. Perhaps they were disappointed and this was the Earth way of demanding performance of the piece. She did not yell or scream, and did not understand the sound wave dynamics that putting fingers in her mouth would produce such a shrill whistle.

  After only a minute or two the band members trooped back on stage. They took up their instruments again to a swell of cheers. T’Pol didn’t understand what the false ending had been for.

  “Loyal fiends. You’ve been a swell audience and now, right before your very ears …”

  It was still not the song. Perhaps its time had expired.

  “We were almost famous, once, long ago.”

  The crowd started to get restless.

  “Perhaps in some universe, alternate reality, you know.” He was paraphrasing the lyrics. T’Pol recognized the opening notes. As Inglesei began to sing, the audience joined in, raggedly. The song would have been much better without their off-key participation. She had waited through all the others just to have the piece she particularly liked ruined by this interference.

  Inglesei walked away from the center spot. The human was struggling with his composure.

  Sitting behind Eskey, Piqué nonetheless seemed aware of his plight, for he began an extension of the song’s theme on the keyboard. As Piqué and Marco joined up on a variation of the melody the audience continued to try and sing the song. Some sang the lyrics, some the chorus. Tyg responded to and with them, marking the rhythm.

  Inglesei stepped forward again. T’Pol was embarrassed to be witness to such a loss of control by the elderly man. He rejoined the music with a subtle, simple but solid bass line, index finger on his instrument. Eyes closed, cheeks damp, with a beatific smile he formed his ragged choir into shape.

  “Univerrsal chord.”

  He turned the chorus into a call and response with the audience. It wasn’t the way the song went at all.

  “Universal chord.” His voice, made even deeper with emotion, gathered them all up.

  Piqué began the main movement of the song again, looking totally serene. How many times was she going to think that? Marco was almost still, head down, swaying slightly, just taking small steps forward and back.

  With guitar and drums in sync and a solid strong base they ventured farther into the darkness. The audience could not keep up with them. It became one great wave of sound moving through space, surrounding T’Pol while she moved through the dark abyss of space.

  Marco stood dangerously close to the edge of the stage. Inglesei moved steadily back, until he and his instrument slipped out. Marco’s hand was a blur again. He controlled crashing waves of noise, however he positioned his guitar. Piqué was pounding the keyboard with his elbows and forearms. The instrument rocked precariously on its thin legs. With a final flourish up and down the keys he stood up. He caught hold of Marco and pulled him to the back of the stage and off.

  The drummer continued, if anything, becoming more frenzied. Splinters flew off the wooden drumsticks. Working his entire assemblage he hit the cymbals with the gourd rattle, he slapped the drums with his hands. It was not a cacophony of sound, though. The strong rhythm matched her rapid heartbeat, caught it, and accelerated it. When she thought she might burst, Tyg concluded, releasing them all. He staggered out from behind his drums, made a deep bow to the audience, hands clasp reverently before him, then limped off the stage.

  The house lights came on abruptly. It was a sharp jolt back to reality. T’Pol had not realized how mesmerized she had been. She was surrounded by others equally surprised to find themselves in a small room on Earth again. She clapped as long as the rest of the audience clapped. People stood for quite some time though the lights were brighter than they had been when she entered.

  There seemed little chance of the band returning. It was a way of thanking them, totally ineffective and impractical. The humans expressed their disappointment with sighs, quiet comments to their companions. A few wiped tears from their eyes.

  The crowd began to slowly make their way out. T’Pol sat down again. There was little point standing, waiting for the crowd to thin out. And she needed a moment.

  “Need a moment to collect yourself?” The other woman at the front, blocked by the crowd, was still at her table.

  Collect herself. Yes, T’Pol thought. That was very apt. She had just traveled the cosmos. She had quite forgotten herself in music.

  “Aren’t they the greatest band ever?” the woman continued.

  It was doubtful, T’Pol thought, that they were the greatest musical group of all time, on Earth, or in the Universe.

  “They are very accomplished musicians,” she did admit.

  In
stead of making their way out some people were approaching the stage, leaving green bottles of liqueur, small parcels tied with ribbon. A thin woman wearing a light summer dress and highly impractical high-heeled sandals stepped out on the stage to collect the gifts. T’Pol suspected she had been the arm handling the plectrums.

  The woman at the front rail had tried to take images throughout the performance. As they made their way out through the thinning crowd she was looking through the images she had taken during the concert.

  “That’s a good one of Eskey.” Close up, the image showed a white-haired, bearded, sweat-soaked, man. His age seemed to have fallen away. With his eyes closed he could have been in a meditative trance.

  “I must have five-thousand pictures, but never a clear one of Marco.

  “Piqué is Piqué is Piqué.” Every image of the keyboardist reminded T’Pol of a Vulcan Kolinhar Master.

  The audience had been urged to buy merchandise repeatedly. T’Pol was not sure what this entailed, but it was impossible to exit without passing a table displaying various items.

  “Everyone’s into just datafiles, but hard copy is always good.”

  The fact sheet from the Consulate had indicated humans were given to conversation, and if one did not respond they were likely to stop talking. T’Pol had not spoken for a while, but the woman was not deterred.

  “Hi,” she said to the young woman behind the table.

  “Oh, hi.”

  The young woman had dark skin, similar to Vulcans of the Southern continent, and humans of the Earth’s African continent. But there was something different, fundamentally different about her. T’Pol had never looked into such ancient eyes. Deep, solid black in a young, ageless face. They stared up at her.

  T’Pol naturally had her identity card with her, which was also a credit chip. She had first used it on Earth to pay the venue’s admission. “I believe this will work,” T’Pol said as she handed it to the young woman.