by Patty Jansen
I sat down as close as I dared. The patrons were all talking to each other, and the subhumans gesturing and whistling and no one took any notice of me.
The music made me shiver. Before long, I was tapping and humming, and the Par shipspeaker with the cithar fixed his gaze on me. I turned sideways, but he still stared. Sweat rolled down my stomach.
I rose as soon as the musicians took a break, but one of the Cor caught me in the crowd.
I tried to side-step him. "I’m sorry, I have to go. My uncle is waiting—"
A man spoke behind me. "You looked quite interested in the music." The Par shipspeaker’s voice sounded strange, cultured.
I met his eyes. They were hazel brown. There was no subhuman with him.
"Do you play?"
"No."
He held up his cithar. "Would you like to try?"
That shimmering silver instrument gleamed at me, mocking my temptation. I wanted to say no, and run, but I couldn’t.
"I’ll show you how."
He gestured for me to sit on his stool and eased the instrument in my lap. It was warm from his touch, and heavy. He showed me how to hold it and where to put my fingers. He made no attempt to touch me anywhere inappropriate. My heart calmed. I trailed my hand over the strings. The instrument made a beautiful sound.
He cocked his head—interested?—and glanced at his colleagues.
"I really have to go now," I said. I tried to give the instrument back to him.
"Wait," he said. "I’ll show you another chord."
He told me where to put my fingers, and when I struck the strings a gust blew open the door to the tavern. Out of the blackness of night came a deep keening sound that crept into me, and settled in my heart.
Everyone in that room stopped talking.
A white-uniformed man at the bar turned to his colleague. "Good heavens, it looks like we’ve found one."
"Didn’t even present for testing, either," the cithar player said "What is your name, girl?"
"Inita... Muravi."
"Muravi?"
They stared at each other, wide-eyed.
"Inita!"
That was my uncle.
He stumbled into the room, and stared at the instrument in my hands. "You disobeyed me. I promised my sister that I’d protect you. She’s already lost half her family."
My uncle dragged me from the room without apology to the men in white. He shoved me down in bed, and made one of his unattached subhumans share the bed with me. The creature was warm, but the touch of its rough skin made me shiver. It crawled to one edge of the bed, and I to another.
Uncle Izatar got up before it was light. He hustled me out of the inn without breakfast. Outside, faint morning light just touched the shortliner waiting for its pilots. I knew it was waiting; I could feel it.
I cried when we left the town. I’d promised Roban I’d marry him, but an emptiness grew inside me the further we went from Gesha.
"Uncle," I said after a long time of staring at the drae’s swaying back. "Do you think I’d be a good storyteller?"
He said nothing, but I read the answer in his eyes.
I COULDN’T BRING myself to speak to Roban for days after I came home, neither did I speak to Mother. I had no idea what Uncle Izatar told her, but no one mentioned further travel for me.
I ached to ask, to yell at them, demand to be told what they knew, but that was not the Muravi way. More than anything, I feared losing their love if I confronted them. No matter who I was, I loved Mother and Roban, and I didn’t mind Fifty-two, Seventeen or Eleven, as long as they didn’t touch me.
I stood on the veranda many times, and saw the ‘liner fly over. The melancholy tune scored a weeping cut into my heart.
One day, a courier came on a drae and brought mail from relatives. Mother sat at her desk and wrote replies. I walked past a few times to see if they were wedding invitations. I didn’t think so, because the parcel of letters she gave the courier was only small.
Mother came to stand next to me on the veranda that night.
"You are different," she said. It was not a question.
"I am Muravi," I said.
"That, you are." Then she went inside, but didn’t turn quickly enough to hide the wetness of her cheeks.
A FEW DAYS LATER, I was in the kitchen when there was a great galloping and bellowing outside. I ran to the veranda to see the drae herd jammed up against the fence, tossing their heads.
In the paddock stood a silver ‘liner. Its door was open, and two white-clad figures were walking up to the house: the two Cor shipspeakers.
Mother had come onto the veranda behind me. I expected her to grab me and hide me somewhere in the house, but she didn’t. She put her hands on my shoulders and waited quietly. Roban came out of the shed where he had been chopping wood.
The two men climbed up the steps to the veranda. They nodded a polite greeting.
Mother returned it.
"Here is the girl," she said.
"Yes," one said and smiled at me. "That’s her indeed."
As Mother let me go in another of those wordless Muravi gestures, it came to me: the courier, the small parcel of letters. "You contacted them?"
"After what Izatar told me, yes. I tried to protect you, but it seems your birthright speaks louder than anything I can teach you."
A tear rolled over her cheek.
I crossed the paddock with the men, Roban’s gaze following me all the way. Seventeen put an arm around his waist.
The inside of the ‘liner was all white and shiny, sleek and beautiful. Small lights winked at me. I wanted to know what they were telling me.
On the other side of the cabin sat a boy about Roban’s age. We locked eyes, then he went back to staring out the window at our farmhouse where Mother had her arms wrapped around Fifty-two. Even Eleven had come onto the veranda.
In the very front of the cabin sat another man, facing a bank of instruments. I could only see the back of his head, but I didn’t think it was the third musician.
One of the Cor shipspeakers spoke.
"We have her, sir."
"Good," the man said. "Inita, you know how you played at the inn? We need you to do another test." His voice was deep and warm.
One of the men opened a sliding door to an alcove with an instrument I recognised as an organ and indicated that I sat on the stool before it.
There was a chart or something like that on the stand, a page full of black lines and squiggles.
"What do I do with this?"
"That is the score. Do you know how to read music?"
I shook my head.
"Just play something."
I closed my eyes and put my finger of the middle key. The organ sang a soft, mournful note that made tears spring in my eyes.
I pressed another key, and the instrument emitted another note, this one higher, and then one lower, and another one lower still. The notes grew into a gentle melody that formed in my mind as I played. The floor vibrated gently. The ‘liner liked it; I could feel it. I played more notes, most without thinking. The melody wasn’t a song but a translation of my thoughts. It grew and morphed, and became faster, acquired a rhythm—
"Whoa. Stop, stop!"
One of the men grabbed my hands and yanked them back from the keys. The music died.
"What?" I stared at him, confused.
The floor vibrated at an alarming pitch. The doors had closed.
"If you play any more, this thing’s going to take off."
I stared at him, swallowed. I had done this?
I knew he was right, because now my hands were no longer on the keys, the ‘liner’s engine maintained its level. I could feel its tension, like a predator poised to spring.
"Wait."
I played the soothing melody again. The pitch of humming in the floor slowed, and then the door opened with a hiss.
"See? It slows when I don’t play so fast."
"It’s called an adagio, or a ballad. Crysta likes b
allads." This was the man at the front of the cabin.
"Crysta?"
"The name of the ship."
I let my fingers glide over the keys without pressing anything. How I longed to try all those different sounds.
The speaker rose and joined me in the alcove. He was about Mother’s age, pale-skinned, with greying hair and a short beard.
"I gather she has the talent, then?" said the boy by the window. He sounded impatient.
"She does indeed. This girl doesn’t belong on the plains herding flocks of drae. This girl will never freely bond with a native. She should be with us. We have enough trouble finding shipspeakers to steer our longliners."
"Longliners? Those are really, really big ships, aren’t they?"
He looked at me, and smiled. "Interstellar ships. They are what holds humanity together."
"But—me? I’m only Inita Muravi, of the plains. The Muravi are farmers, storytellers."
"Not all of them," the man said slowly, his voice husky with emotion. "Edymeon Par Muravi is the best shipspeaker in the entire longliner fleet."
I looked up. "Dad?"
He enfolded me in a wordless hug.
The boy at the window got up. "Can I go now?"
"Just a moment, Sigma. Meet your sister."
Sister? The boy faced me, awkwardly. In his eyes, I saw myself, my deep unhappiness. Just like me with storytelling, he’d tried, and never felt one with the music and the ‘liner. He had longed for the plains; he yearned to share his life with a subhuman.
Slowly, he peeled off his white uniform and gave it to me.
He hugged his father and walked down the gangplank. Fifty-two and Seventeen stood at the gate to the paddock. Both draped arms over his shoulders. A few drae lifted their shaggy heads. One bellowed in the soft way that signified contentedness.
No one said anything until Sigma had joined Mother on the veranda. Eleven’s chest flushed a deep red.
My father closed the ‘liner’s door; his eyes glistened. "Put the suit on, Inita. You have a lot to catch up on." He hesitated. "I presume you want to come?"
"I do," I said, "but I ask one thing."
He raised his eyebrows.
"Every year, we should come to the family gathering. We will play music, and those Muravi who want to come, should come."
He cocked his head. His eyes were intense. Then he nodded. There was no need for words. He was Muravi after all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patty Jansen lives in Sydney, Australia, where she spends most of her time writing Science Fiction and Fantasy. Her story This Peaceful State of War placed first in the second quarter of the Writers of the Future contest and was published in their 27th anthology. She has also sold fiction to genre magazines such as Analog Science Fiction and Fact, Redstone SF and Aurealis.
@pattyjansen
patty.jansen
pattyjansen.com
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