Space Chantey

by R. A. Lafferty

  “Let us tackle this as a strategic problem,” said great Captain Puckett. “You had better let me handle this, Roadstrum. A strategic man you are not. Formulate the problem, Crewman Bramble.”

  “The problem is to force the missing note from the creature or creatures so that our apprehensions and frustrations may be quieted and our sanity restored. The ancillary of the problem is that we do this without ourselves perishing, as all other farers here have perished.”

  “And what is the nature of the opponent, Crewman Bramble?”

  “That we do not know, Captain Puckett, nor whether it is a single or plural thing. In earliest mythology it was referred to as the Siren-Zo or the Siren-Animal, as being one. But in appearance it is many, as we now see it, in the form of various well-bodied, golden-haired, singing women on the numerous outcroppings of the musical mountain. In what manner they kill all who try to come up to reach them is not known. Our only procedure seems to be that true one—trial and error. I suggest that the most useless man of us begin the climb now, and we will see how he dies.”

  “Crewman Nonvalevole, start climbing,” Captain Puckett ordered. “Make for the nearest of the goldie-blondes there.”

  “All right,” said Crewman Nonvalevole, and he began to climb the musical mountain up to the nearest siren. There was an odd thing about his climbing. Often the rocks of the mountain shivered under his feet as if to throw him down.

  “The mountain itself is the creature,” said Captain Roadstrum. “The scree and the boulders are part of its hide, and it shivers its hide like a World horse. The whole thing is alive. The blonde maidens are but tentacles of the thing.”

  “May I tangle with such a tentacle!” said Crewman Crabgrass.

  “We must find the mortal center of the creature and attack it there,” Roadstrum continued. “We will not kill it by scratching its hide. But when we do find its mortal center and kill it there, then, I believe, in its moment of death agony, we will hear the missing note. That is mv conjecture.”

  “Oh be quiet, great Captain Roadstrum,” all the men said. “A conjecture man you are not.”

  Crewman Nonvalevole had now climbed nearly to the nearest blondie siren. She rolled limpid blue eyes at him and sang in wonderful brass. It was a green-country foot-shuffling tune with a touch of boogie and a touch of ballad, none of your fancy things. It was the sort of tune that faring men themselves sing, but incomparably better, and with a rich beat and swing. The hornet instruments had been wrong to call it “Not very good tune anyhow,” for it was good. It rose to the high stunning happy pitch—and then nothing. The climax note was missing and it drove them all crazy.

  And then it began once more. Again and again it rose, and left the gaping silence at its apex. Men would perish of hunger and thirst yearning for that missing note. It had to be found.

  Crewman Nonvalevole was up to the shimmering blondie now. Singingly she smiled at him and patted her golden knees. The crewman sat on her blonde lap and enfolded her in passionate arms.

  There was lightning without thunder. The blondie brushed ashes and cinders out of her lap, ashes and cinders that were all the mortal remains of Crewman Nonvalevole.

  “That was sudden and consuming,” said Captain Puckett. “Did you get a reading on it, Crewman Bramble?”

  “Twelve thousand amps, nine million volts, a little over one million cycles. A pretty good jolt. She never missed a note either, except the missing note itself. And I am sure that I heard a hint of that too, right at the frying moment. It didn’t sound, but it was near to becoming a sound.”

  “The almost-sound was from Crewman Nonvalevole, not from Siren-sis,” said Captain Roadstrum. “In his moment he did come near to voicing the note. I believe that I am on the right course. I have this intuition that we must go for the interior vitals. The outer hide of the thing is dangerous.”

  “Be quiet, Captain Roadstrum,” said Captain Puckett. “An intuitive man you are not. It’s a pretty good electric chair they have though.”

  “It isn’t new; it’s been done before,” Crewman Crabgrass cut in. “They have them on Womboggle World, electric chairs in the form of beautiful women so the condemned can die happy.”

  “Who is the next most worthless man?” Captain Puckett asked. “That would be Crewman Stumble, I believe.”

  “I’ll not go up!” swore Crewman Stumble. “I am not worthless to me. Send a dummy man up.”

  “That’s what you are,” said the relentless Captain Puckett. “You will go up, and you will trail a ground wire behind you like a tail. We will see if this one crisps you as thoroughly as that one fried Crewman Nonvalevole. We will get several of these fryings and we may be able to establish a pattern as to the way they work.”

  “Well, all right, but I don’t like it,” Crewman Stumble grumbled. Crewman Bramble attached a ground wire to Stumble like a tail, and Stumble began to climb the mountain toward the swishing blondie on a low left ledge. She ground out the ballad, fluting brass and a touch of fiddle music, in her buxom voice. Crewman Stumble became livelier the nearer he came to her, and she sang him up to her with an ever heftier voice, all the foot-stomping ascending notes, except the final one. The top of the tune was still missing.

  Crewman Stumble finished his up-jaunt with a wild surge to the blondie’s outstretched arms, leaped aboard her spacious frame, and locked around her with arms and legs. She intruded a laughing note into the ballad, but not the note itself. Then she gave him a smooch that was one of the great things.

  Once more there was lightning without thunder. Then the blondie was brushing the ashes and embers of Crew man Stumble off her breast. And the damnable song rose and fell again and again, and the top of it was always missing.

  “Did you get a reading that time, Crewman Bramble?” Captain Puckett asked.

  “Yes. I believe it is the beginning of success,” Crewman Bramble stated. “The ground wire made a difference. It vaporized, of course, and the reaction killed three other crewman near this end of it, but we do show progress. We begin to establish a pattern. It was only eleven thousand and fifty amps that time, eight and a quarter million volts, and the frequency remained the same. This time we’ll use a heavier ground wire … hell, we’ll use two of them!”

  “Who is the next most useless man?” Captain Puckett asked, looking around.

  “Enough!” Captain Roadstrum announced ponderously. “I am taking command once more.”

  “But, Roadstrum, we are proceeding according to scientific testing methods,” Puckett protested. “Please don’t interfere. A scientific man you are not.”

  “An excess of science will leave none of us alive, Puckett. Scouting patrol, see how we may find entrance to the thing itself! We itch in its hide, and it scratches us to kill. But it cannot scratch us if we are inside it. I have old folk memory of ascending the thing inside. We will find the passage.”

  The scouters scouted. They went on hornet instruments when bankrupt of other ideas. The instruments told them that the mountain-animal was indeed hollow, or at least had an open anal-oral passage, and that the entrance could be found, very deep and under water. The instruments indicated just where that passage was, but shuddered when asked whether there were dangers involved.

  “As the finest diver and the finest all-man, I will go first,” Captain Roadstrum announced. “Do you all follow me like close tails. If we drown and die, remember that one death is as good as another.”

  “No it is not,” said Crewman Mundmark. “I’d rather die crisped by one of those blondies than drown in black water.”

  Captain Roadstrum dived a great dive down into the black water, in under the shelf of the continent that was also the mountain and the creature; and all the men followed him. He dove till it seemed that his lungs would burst. They did burst a little, bye and bye, and this gave him some relief. It also left a dark red trail that the men could follow.

  Then they all broke surface in a black cavity very deep under the thing. The only light was a gar
ish dark red one far above them.

  “It goes five hundred meters up and is a tricky climb,” said Captain Puckett.

  “We are tricky men; we can climb it,” said Captain Roadstrum. “Do you see it now, men, do you see the form of the creature? It is a big rambling spider-form inside here, and the mountain is a living shell it has built for itself, for it’s a mixed creature. The tune has a deeper tone inside here, and one can make out the words, but what do they mean. ‘Da luan, da mort,’ over and over again. ‘Da luan, da mort,’ what does that mean, over and over again, Crewman Bramble?”

  “It’s the treadmill song out of an Irish cycle,” said Bramble. “ ‘Monday and Tuesday and Monday and Tuesday and Monday and Tuesday,’ so the poor slaves had to sing at their labor for the puca. And finally a great savior came and broke the charm. ‘And Wednesday too,’ he said, and then it was all over with.”

  “Roadstrum is the great savior who breaks the charm,” Roadstrum announced. “I will set a Wednesday-term to the monster. But there are other elements in this. Is not the climbing up of the giant spider and the slaying of it an Arabian-cycle thing? And did not Hans Schultz, in the green-island cycle, have a dream of the same thing? Upward, men; we are onto a great kill!”

  Hawsers, cables a meter thick they climbed—and these were but the fine silks of the giant spider. The hairs on its toes were even thicker, and the men blasted them, beginning the attack. A note of alarm crept into the mountainous singing now. The creature knew that it was invaded but did not know how or by what. The creature sent tremors through its webs that threatened to dash the men down to their deaths.

  “We must go inside the creature and kill it interiorly,” Roadstrum announced when they had ascended a hundred meters. So they all entered the vulgar cavity of the thing and continued to climb upward.

  There was still light, more so than before. It was more garish, redder, more threatening than it had been. That first light had been but the reflection of this. The mountainous interior spider had nine outside eyes and one great glowing interior eye by which he liked to contemplate himself. This was the spookiest light ever seen; and was the spookiest place, but one, in all the universes.

  “The big red interior eye like a beacon is the mortal center of the creature,” Roadstrum announced. “We will kill it there and it will die. And we will get our missing note then, or we will die too, from deprivation. It goes into a frenzy now as we close in on it. Who is the scareder, we or it?”

  “We are, we are,” the men cried. “We’re the scaredest men ever.”

  The singing mountain had become hysterical with fright of the small things climbing up its maw. The song was really a racy one now, a lot of good fever in it, a black-blood beat that was solid. It rose and moaned, and only the top of it was missing. But it had outlined itself now, and the final note, when it came, would be worth it all.

  It was now seen that the entire mountain-creature was one single instrument, and the whole planet was its sounding box. The blondie-orifices were but small reeds of this amazing organ, the giant web-threads were quivering strings.

  Now the music-mountain was frantic, and so were the men. “Somebody dies pretty quick now,” gasped Crewman Cutshark, “either we or he, and I don’t much care which so long as it is swift.”

  “Mind those quivering stalks there, Cutshark,” Roadstrum warned. “I believe that they emit a very strong digestive juice.”

  “Touch one, Crewman Cutshark,” Captain Puckett ordered. “Observe the data, Crewman Bramble.”

  Crewman Cutshark touched one of the stalks, and he dissolved. The flesh was whisked away from him like vapor. He was only rather dirty white bones, and then the bones also dissolved.

  “What did you get, Crewman Bramble?” Captain Puckett asked.

  “Eleven million dissolution units at a base of—”

  “Leave off the science stuff or I’ll clamp you all in irons,” Roadstrum warned. “Upward, men, to the big kill. It’s but fifty meters above us, and death licking at us every spot of the way. Hey, listen to the way it’s beginning to scream now! That really jazzes up the tune.”

  “That’s me screaming, Captain Roadstrum, and I don’t figure on stopping for quite a while,” Crewman Threefountains screamed.

  Ah, the baleful red-glowing inner eye of the monster, which was also its soul and its mortal center. It blazed with red and black fire, and crackled and stunk. The tune began a new ascension, many times more powerful than it had been before, hysterical with horror, giddy and gibbering, hate-hopping, and yet quite the best thing of its sort ever done. All it needed was the top of the tune, and that moment drew very near. The whole mountain was lashing out frantically, flinging thousand-ton boulders out of its quivering hide, moaning and bursting asunder.

  “Now, men, now!” great Roadstrum cried, and he dove upward into the giant living eye. And all dove into it, rending it, killing the thing.

  The note. The missing note sounded. It was worth it. It was fulfillment. It was water after deserts. It was the top of the tune. They all heard it. And nobody would ever hear it again.

  It sounded the note in its last agony. Then the whole mountain died.

  Roadstrum kicked the mountain open and they all went outside. The mountain was smaller than it had been, and it shrunk down still smaller as though the air were being let out of it.

  The tune was gone and forever. Its missing note would no more be a hazard to that sector of space. All the crewmen felt deep satisfaction. They had heard the dying note of the Siren-Zo and their thirst was quenched. The blondie appendages had become broken dolls.

  All loaded into the hornets for further adventures. It was early Wednesday morning.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On Polyphem, a sneaking, snaking mood they found,

  And something odd about the tasty food they found.

  They gazed to see the passive sheep and lambs about,

  Nor guessed themselves to be the woolly rams about.

  The leader, he a sullen stormy blokey there,

  Defiled the bord and put them in the pokey there.

  And one became so gross they couldn’t carry him,

  And one so queer and cold they had to bury him.

  But some got out alive from it, and well they did,

  And lived for worse, but none knows how the hell they did.

  Ibid

  THE KID HONDSTARFER, back on Lamos that was Valhalla, had told them that one of the hornets would break down after a little while. He said that he had made a lot of mistakes on one of them. But they had worked perfectly since that time, and the Captains and crewmen had forgotten that advice.

  Now the hornet of Puckett broke down. Or it broke, and it had to come down somewhere or perish into pieces. Puckett told Roadstrum to go on and leave him. Puckett had a way of putting it on pretty thick, sort of a wheedling way, sort of a “but of course one space captain would never leave another in distress” way of presenting such things. Roadstrum felt a strange body twinge which he mistook for the call of duty. He said he would never leave a mate in distress.

  “I believe a little creative mutiny is called for here,” Crewmen Trochanter and Crabgrass and Clamdigger told Captain Roadstrum. “We are a little tired of caring for the boys in Boat B, and we’re not too happy about yourself.”

  Roadstrum had a way of putting it on pretty thick himself.

  “Be there man among you who doubts my demesne or destiny, then I have fared in vain,” he said. “I bare my throat to the treacherous steel—”

  “All right, all right,” the three tough crewmen capitulated. “We’re with you, all the way and in everything. Only spare us the ‘act.’ ”

  “It’s Polyphemia or nothing,” Roadstrum called to Puckett over the communicator. “There’s not another world we could possibly reach.”

  “You said the same thing about Lamos of the Giants,” Puckett protested. “Roadstrum, there’s got to be another world.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t really so ba
d, Puckett. Thinking back on it, it was sort of fun with the giants. There really isn’t another world we can reach if you’re coming apart. Polyphemia is better than nothing.”

  (“False tongue,” voiced the communicator.)

  “Oh all right, Roadstrum, we’ll go down then.”

  But the communicator was right. Roadstrum did speak with false tongue unwittingly. Polyphemia was incomparably worse than nothing.

  But it looked wonderful enough coming into it. Great green grass! But it did look wonderful! It was a pastoral world, said the manual. The Polyphemians were simple shepherds. They raised sheep and goats, made a little cheese and whey, drank sweet milk, ate fine lamb and kid, perhaps wove a little wool, the manual said, lived in fleece or hair tents, and supposedly played pastoral airs on wooden flutes.

  “It cloys, it cloys,” said Crewman Clamdigger. “Let’s think a little more about that mutiny, men.”

  “Ah well, maybe there’ll be shepherdesses,” Roadstrum told them.

  “Combing wool and churning butter, not for us,” said Crewman Trochanter.

  They landed badly. The facilities on Polyphemia were the worst in the universe. They felt eyes watching them, wolfish eyes, not sheep eyes. But the only one who shuffled up to meet them was a lank, dour shepherd. They supposed he was a shepherd, but he wasn’t combing wool.

  “A happy day to you,” Captain Roadstrum boomed. “I suppose it isn’t every day that fine, cheerful, interesting strangers come to visit you.”

  “We hate strangers,” said the Polyphemian. “And we hate spacecraft. We hate just about everything.”

  He shriveled them with a look, and he spat green.

  “But we are in dire distress. One of our crafts is crippled. We will need time to repair it, and perhaps we will need your help,” said Roadstrum.

  “We are tone-deaf to the call of help,” said the sour shepherd. “We are deaf to almost everything. There is only one sound we hear a little. We call it the green whisper.”