Strange Music

by Alan Dean Foster

  The official’s eyebrows rose as she saw him in a new light. “That’s not bad! In fact, it’s pretty good.” Flinx could perceive that she was telling the truth, which bolstered his confidence. Of course, it was only the opinion of another human, not a native. “A lot of those who come here are just looking to add a spacer to their credit limit. They learn only what’s necessary about the local culture to accomplish that. Keep the conversation largo and pianissimo and you should be fine.”

  Thus encouraged, he passed through the charged field that constituted the only barrier between the Commonwealth station and Borusegahm proper, and soon found himself swallowed up in the bustle of the Leeth.

  Two things struck him immediately after crossing the bridge, which was half duralloy mesh on the station side and cut stone where it marked the border into Borusegahm. First, the babble of conversation around him was akin to stepping into a live performance venue where rehearsals for a dozen different operas were taking place simultaneously. Soaring and lilting, musical and forceful, the everyday speech of the Larians threatened to submerge him in complex counterpoint. It was wondrous to experience and beautiful to listen to, less easy to comprehend.

  Second, he discovered to his considerable shock that while he was perfectly able to perceive and interpret the emotions of the nonspeakers rushing around him, as soon as they opened their mouths to singspeak, their respective emotional states became a complete blank.

  What on Midworld? Aware that he had halted abruptly, he moved to one side. Sheltered by an overhang of some thick woven material akin to black seaweed, he leaned against the cold, damp stone wall behind him and stared at the pedestrian traffic that was funneled between stone buildings of two and three stories. Sensing her master’s unease, Pip squirmed uncomfortably beneath his jacket. Reaching up, he stroked her through the fabric, calming and reassuring her.

  Concentrating on individuals who had stopped to ponder some unknown conundrum, or engage in conversation with others of their kind, he focused his talent on them one by one, seeking confirmation of the unexpected. It made no sense, he told himself. Certainly Sylzenzuzex had not prepared him for this. How could she, not possessing the same ability herself?

  Certain projectile weapons shot blanks. Right now, that was what his talent was drawing.

  Close at hand, three females were locked in intense conversation. Their tight-fitting, transparent outer attire revealed their brilliant natural coloration beneath. Strands of intensely hued neck fur flared intermittently as they argued. Beyond the trio, other Larians rushed back and forth, their supporting dorsal notochords allowing them a flexibility no human could match. From this steady stream of pedestrians, emotions gushed forth in a torrent. But when he sought to perceive the emotional states of the three contentious females, he sensed only a void.

  What was happening here? He had been places where his talent was heightened. He had spent time on worlds and in situations where it functioned only intermittently and without rhyme or reason. But never before had he found himself on a world where speech canceled out emotion entirely.

  He stared at the trio, straining to perceive. As soon as one went silent, he found that he could feel and interpret her emotions. There was discord and excitement, enthusiasm and upset. Yet as soon as the individual he was focused on started sing-talking again, every emotion, every feeling, vanished from Flinx’s ken as swiftly as air from a popped balloon.

  As the leaden sky began to weep a cold sweat, he fought furiously to recall everything he had learned on board the Teacher about the inhabitants of Largess. There had to be some clues, or at least a clue, that might lead to an explanation of what he was experiencing. Some facet of physiology, an aspect of mental capacity, a cultural distinction, that would allow him to understand why he could not sense the Larians’ emotions when they were speaking. Based on everything he could remember, which admittedly was hardly comprehensive, there was no biological reason for the phenomena he was experiencing. There was nothing he could recall about the workings of the Larian nervous system that should prevent him from perceiving their emotional state whether they were silent or babbling interminably.

  Could it be that there was something unique about the neurology of Larian females? Or about this particular trio? But no matter where he extended himself outward, no matter which group or individuals he focused upon, the result was the same. The emotions of mute natives were readily accessible. As soon as they opened their mouths and commenced to singspeak, however, their inner selves were hushed. Their singspeak was…

  Singspeak. Singspeak.

  The Larian language itself was not complicated. There was none of the often difficult sibilance of the AAnn, no added visual complexity of thranx gesturing. Human and Larian throat mechanics were not all that different from each other. As with human singing, Larian singspeech was all about inflection, tone, melody, and rhythm. Cadence conveyed feeling. Volume added emphasis. Based on what he had read, admired Larian speakers occupied the same status among their own kind as multi-octave singers did among humans, and facile whistlers among the thranx. Accordingly, when talking, even the lowliest local would put everything they had into their speech. Everything.

  Which, unless he could find another explanation, meant there was nothing left over for lingering emotion.

  Everything a Larian was feeling went into their speech. Plainly there was some kind of neurological disconnect that took place when they spoke, so that their emotions were conveyed wholly through their singspeaking. Whatever that mechanism was, it left nothing for an empath like himself to perceive. Not only was this revelation a surprise, it suggested a kind of danger he had never encountered before. If someone intended him ill, if there was a gun or a knife aimed his way, he had almost always been able to sense the intent behind the threat before it could be carried out. It appeared that he could still do so now—provided his attacker was silent.

  What would happen if a prospective assassin was chatting amiably while preparing to slit his throat? If the incipient murderer’s emotional state was a complete blank? If instead of thinking, I’m going to kill you, he was blithely asking Flinx’s opinion about the weather? There would be no warning, when for the past several years at least Flinx had always relied on such a foreshadowing.

  A rustling beneath his jacket caused him to refocus not only his line of sight but his thoughts. Pip was not capable of speech. But like him, she was an empath. Could she, unlike him, sense the emotions of Larians even while they were singspeaking? He would have to watch her closely, would have to try and ascertain how she reacted to different native emotional states. If she could read the emotions of the indigenes while they were singspeaking, watching her might return to him some of the security that otherwise seemed lost to him here.

  Assuming he stayed here. It was his unique ability that had prompted Sylzenzuzex and the Church to request his help on Largess in the first place. If that ability was only partially functional, and indeed put him at far more risk than he or Syl or anyone could have imagined, he had a legitimate reason for asking to be withdrawn from the undertaking. He knew what Clarity would say.

  But Clarity and the warm seas of Cachalot were parsecs away. He was here, on a clammy and not especially inviting world, asked to help put a stop to advanced interference in the affairs of the planet. Except for Pip he was alone, and would be working alone among a species whose appeal did not extend beyond the physical. The Larians were testy, argumentative, backward, and prone to constant fighting among themselves. By comparison the AAnn, their imperialistic motivations notwithstanding, were easier to understand.

  If he backed out now, Sylzenzuzex would understand. But she would be disappointed. So would whomever she had persuaded to authorize his surreptitious participation in resolving the situation on Largess. Still officially proscribed and hunted by the Commonwealth government, if he retreated now he risked losing allies within the Church. Rejecting the task would also involve something else. Something that would be entire
ly new to him.

  Admitting defeat.

  Was he, Philip Lynx, who had activated the incredibly ancient weapons system of the Xunca and saved the galaxy from the Great Evil, to surrender and run away because he couldn’t sense a few emotions? Could he return to Cachalot and spend the rest of his days fishing and idling, knowing that he could have helped not only the Church but a young species on the threshold of real civilization? A small green head peeped out from the collar of his jacket to eye him questioningly. Having picked up on his increasingly roiled emotional state, Pip was showing her concern.

  Reaching down with his right hand, he used the index and middle finger to gently stroke the back of her head. Slitted eyes closed in pleasure.

  “It’s all right, girl. I’m just being myself.”

  Go home, he told himself. Go back to Clarity, and safety. You’ve done enough. You’re half blind here.

  The unease engendered by his lack of easy perception of the Larians’ emotions was a sensation he had not felt since he was a child. It was as if had lost an eye. Could he do what he had promised while only half “seeing”? The adrenaline that rushed through him was in response to suddenly heightened danger. It was a new feeling, and he didn’t particularly like it.

  He wasn’t afraid of danger. He was afraid of not being able to sense it. He was, he abruptly realized, afraid of being forced to proceed for the near future as…an ordinary human.

  Could he fall that low and still aim high?

  At least when he reached out to read the silent Larians, there was no throbbing in his head. Not so far, anyway. If Pip could perceive what the locals were feeling, he could perceive her. That postulated a possible backdoor solution to his dilemma. He resolved to stay.

  She started to shiver. Reassured that he was all right, she ducked her head back down out of sight and out of the weather. He would begin tomorrow, he told himself. But there were a few things left to do first, to prepare, before he could strike out into the depths of Borusegahm and possibly farther afield. Turning, he started back toward the bridge that would return him to the Commonwealth compound.

  —

  He spent the evening and all the next day garnering the last bits of potentially relevant information from Padre Jonas. In between visits he carefully filled the single backpack and prepared the specially customized metal walking tube he would take with him. Fashioned of a lightweight alloy unknown to Larian metallurgy, the walking tube was sufficiently advanced to promote the prospect of offworld trade without being too flashy or violating the edict against introducing advanced technology. It was simply a piece of tubular metal of un-Larian composition. Exhibiting it violated no policy. In contrast, demonstrating how to make it would have been proscribed.

  The following day he spent conversing with some of the other offworlders who were staying at the same station residence. Among them he encountered cultural attachés, xenoethnologists, and of most relevance to his forthcoming jaunt, traders. He knew from his studies that numerous spices and oils and unguents were unique to Largess. Not easy and in some cases impossible to synthesize, their complex molecules alternately delighted the nostrils, skin, and digestive systems of human and other species. In every case the men and women he spoke with lamented Largess’s stunted status. Were it higher, they could range farther afield from the single station, expand trade, increase profits. Such an increase in commerce would be good for the locals, too.

  But that kind of growth rested on an upgrade of the planet’s status, which in turn depended on the natives getting their act together long enough to form at least a rudimentary planetary government. A looming war over the abduction of the Hobak’s Firstborn promised to set back the small, hesitant steps the locals had taken toward achieving that end.

  Who had abducted her, and to what purpose? None of the offworlders with whom Flinx chatted had the slightest idea. It was a full-time task just keeping track of the constantly shifting alliances among communities and clans, so that one could hope to be welcomed and not shot at when presenting oneself at a town gate. Only the profits to be made from the modest but steady Largessian trade kept visitors coming back to a world whose weather was as unpredictable and often unwelcoming as its inhabitants.

  Ordinarily, Flinx would not have worried about the former and been convinced of his ability to deal with the latter. Ordinarily, that is, because he’d always had his empathetic abilities to fall back on. This time it was going to be a little different. Maybe even a bit more dangerous.

  Looking out the window of his room at the heavy, low-lying cloud cover, he found that it increasingly matched his mood. When among the natives he could singspeak, but when not engaged in that local talk, he could not perceive. He could see clearly, but a part of him would effectively be deaf.

  At that moment, the only emotions he could sense were his own. He needed no special ability to realize that his increasing uncertainty could all too quickly become fear.

  5

  ■ ■ ■

  The Largessian climate combined with the comparative close quarters offered by the station structures had an immediate, profound, and unpleasant effect on Flinx. He caught a cold. Though he had never personally experienced the ancient and incredibly persistent human ailment known as nasopharyngitis, he had heard of it. Alien to Largess, the active virus that infected him had been delivered by one of the other humans at the outpost. Had he inquired, he would have learned that common colds were fairly common at the station. The appropriate targeted antiviral cured him completely within a couple of hours, but it delayed his departure into the Leeth and sullied his mood.

  Adjusting the wide-brimmed hat that partially concealed his human visage, and feeling as well as could be expected on the characteristically cool and dank afternoon, he once again found himself striding across the South Bridge, gripping a wide-mouthed metal walking tube as he transitioned from metal mesh to wood and fiber. Hydrophobic attire would have kept him completely dry in the intermittent drizzle, but hydrophobic materials qualified as advanced tech and therefore could not be worn outside the borders of Borusegahm Leeth. A foolish restriction, he thought. All the scientific and engineering minds on Largess working together could not have deduced how to reproduce modern hydrophobic material. But the law being the law, he was reduced to wearing clothing that, while capable of shedding water, had absolutely no ability to actively repel it.

  Before long he was swallowed up anew by the town. The difference was that this time he was not randomly collecting experiences or sampling local emotions. This time he had a clear goal in mind, and that goal had a name.

  Wiegl.

  He would make contact and engage the services of the local the Padre had suggested. Together, they would find out who had abducted the Firstborn of Borusegahm and learn where she had been taken. After that, they would track her down and…

  And what? Would he be able to project, emotionally, onto the Larians? He had been relying on that ability to “persuade” her captors to turn her over. If he could not do that, then what? He could not offer access to advanced technology. He had no access to large sums of local currency. He doubted her kidnappers would hand her over based on his charming personality.

  What was he going to do?

  Emotional projection still seemed the best option. Once immersed in Larian culture, he was certain there would be opportunities to see if it would function. If not, well, there would always be time to turn back. Time to give up, to concede, to surrender to reality. Never his best friend, reality. Nor had he ever been especially fond of it. But like it or not, he was stuck with it.

  There was also the possibility, he told himself, that this Wiegl individual might have a suggestion or two of his own.

  Where to begin? He was under no illusion that he would be able to conduct his inquiries in confidence. While humans and other offworlders had been visiting and working on Largess for quite some time, their presence outside the station was not common. A single representative of his kind, traveling alon
e and on foot as opposed to in a skimmer, was a greater rarity still. And this was Borusegahm Leeth, where the Commonwealth station was located. He could only imagine the kind of attention he would draw once he traveled beyond local boundaries.

  He had been told that this Wiegl, the native whom Padre Jonas had suggested he seek out, was an itinerant trader of sorts. As Flinx began making inquiries he learned that nothing had changed from his previous visit. The emotional states of silent Larians he could usually read, but when they started babbling among themselves he could rely only on their actual speech to try to figure out what they might be feeling. The constant and abrupt on-and-off emotional reception threatened to give him a headache even when he was not trying to utilize his talent. As for trying to emotionally project on any of them, he determined to wait until an appropriate situation presented itself. If his ability was going to help him recover the abducted Firstborn, he was going to have to be able to do more than mentally persuade a shopper she had made a distressing purchase.

  Expecting the locals to react with surprise at his raw but intelligible singspeech, he was disappointed when his efforts roused no more than an occasional twitch of a flexible nostril. The Commonwealth station on Largess was not a new one, and at least among the locals the novelty of hearing offworlders speak their language had long since worn off. Reactions would likely be different farther from the Leeth, he was told, but even at a distance he might find that his presence and fluency aroused little curiosity. Representatives of the Commonwealth had traveled extensively on Largess, slowly and carefully attempting to prepare it for its eventual application for associate Commonwealth membership.

  It was just as well, he told himself. The less attention he drew, the greater the likelihood of surprising the interloper or interlopers who were causing so much trouble.

  The political aspects of the intrusion bothered him. They had bothered him from the start. He could understand violating the edicts against utilizing advanced tech among locals proscribed from receiving it. Largess was hardly the first world where avaricious visitors had sought to employ superior technology to gain an advantage in trade, or thievery, or other illegal activities. But why would anyone take such a personal risk for the purpose of interfering in local political affairs? Indigenous politics was a realm where governments and large private organizations usually had something to gain. Not individuals.