Songs From The Stars

by Norman Spinrad

  But also a lonely one, Lou thought, squeezing Sue's hand. For the only way they could ever enjoy true human company again was to fulfill the prophecy that Sue had so neatly set up as if guided by the future's unseen hand. The songs from the stars must be sung to the ends of the Earth. The Galactic Way was the birthright of all men, not two lonely souls, and all men must learn to walk it.

  But if Arnold Harker was a fair example of the breed, that might not be as easy as it seemed it should be.

  Harker drummed his fingers nervously on the steel table. "We only have air enough for another fifteen hours," he said. "The decision can be put off no longer. And I have made it. We will not take the data banks back to Earth with us, and we will broadcast nothing. We will not loose this chaos on our poor planet."

  "You've made the decision?" Sue snarled. "Up yours, Arnold, we outvote you, two to one."

  "I'm the commander of this mission."

  "Oh yeah, well, nobody put you in command of me!"

  Lou watched them glare at each other. How was this decision going to get made? Or rather, how am I going to get Harker to accept the decision that destiny has already made for us? Where is justice that I can make him accept? But wait a minute...

  "Space Systems Incorporated agreed to accept my justice on the songs from the stars," he reminded the Spacer. "And it's no secret that I find their karma sweet and their spirit white."

  "That's your decision as the giver of justice?" Harker said slowly.

  Lou nodded.

  "Well I reject it! You're no perfect master anymore, you're the pawn of alien monsters! I reject your authority utterly."

  Lou goggled at the Spacer. Never had he heard of anyone rejecting the justice he himself had sought. It was a violation and dishonor that struck deeper at the harmony of the human spirit than anything Harker might imagine could come from without. For where justice willingly sought was not willingly accepted the only rule left was that of force.

  "You're shocked?" Harker said sardonically. "But why should I accept your authority in this matter? White or black, science or sorcery, perfect master or black scientist, justice or injustice, does any of that have relevance now? Isn't your Clear Blue Way just another pathetic human shadow of things we'll never fully understand?"

  Lou thought about that one, good and hard. If the Galactic Way wasn't beyond present human comprehension, it wouldn't be the Galactic Way. Yet, if it were not in harmony with the Clear Blue Way, it wouldn't be the Galactic Way either. No, there was nothing in the Clear Blue Way out of sync with the Galactic Way, and nothing in the Galactic Way to which the Clear Blue Way did not vibrate in harmony like a sympathetic minor chord. Galactic stage beings respected their own higher version of the Great Way and something very much like the law of muscle, sun, wind and water. They poisoned not the body of creation. They lived in harmony with the ultimate galactic ecosphere. They loved all life and respected all mind. They were like what good men wanted to be.

  "Not pathetic," Lou finally said quietly. "And not a shadow."

  "It doesn't give you the right to make this decision for the entire human race," Harker said. "And it doesn't give you the power either. That power is mine alone."

  Sue half rose out of her chair. "I think the two of us can handle you, Arnold, if we have to," she said, balling her hands into fists. "Isn't that right, Lou?"

  Harker just stared her down. "I'm the pilot of the Enterprise," he said. "What we've found stays here, or we don't go back."

  "What?"

  "I'm dead serious," Harker said. "I won't fly the spaceship back unless the data banks stay here and are not broadcast to the Earth. We'll all die here first."

  "You can't stop us," Sue stammered, sinking back into her chair. "I know how to work the equipment; I know how to activate the satellite network..."

  "But you'll never get home. And when the spaceship doesn't come back, the Company will recognize what you've broadcast for the doom it is. And we know how to keep secrets. And who else has a ground station or knows how to build a spaceship?"

  Sue looked imploringly at Lou. "You can fly us home, can't you, Lou?" she said. "You've watched him fly the ship, you've learned the controls..."

  Lou thought about it. In theory, he knew what to do. But he had never flown a spaceship before, and no one had ever landed one. For that matter, neither had Harker. Come to think of it, there was no guarantee that they could get back at all.

  "I could take a shot at it..." he said bleakly.

  "And leave me here to die?" Harker said shrewdly. "Is such the wisdom and justice you have learned from the stars?"

  "You choose your karma and we choose ours," Lou said. "You can't control us with a guilt program like that." But he wouldn't have been Clear Blue Lou if he didn't smell something a little hollow about that rationalization.

  "Thus speaks the perfect master and giver of justice!" Harker said scathingly. "Willing to take the fate of humanity into his own hands and commit murder in the process! Where's your justice in that when I'm willing to die to save our species from your so-called wisdom?"

  "What do you mean by that?" Lou said slowly. But he was beginning to feel the walls of a karmic trap forming around him. Perhaps they had been there all along.

  "Here we are, a scientist, a perfect master, and a tribal leader," Harker said smugly. "Three pretty fair examples of the best our species has to offer, wouldn't you say? And we're reduced to threats and the realities of power. What does that say about the wisdom of your justice? What does it say about our species' chance of living with it?"

  "What are you trying to say?" Lou whispered. But a cold wind was already blowing through his soul.

  "What I'm saying is that what's happening right now proves that the human race can't handle this," Harker said. "The three of us can't even agree whether the world should know what we know. Your very certainty is what proves you wrong."

  Clear Blue Lou felt as if he had been kicked in the belly by a horse. For Harker was right. Justice worked by force of will was no justice at all. Justice that tasted sour was not the justice of the Way.

  "So where do you think justice lies?" he asked the black scientist with deadly seriousness.

  "In admitting the true situation and acting accordingly," Harker said. "Since the three of us can't make this decision together for our species, it must wait until someone else can. We leave what we found here on the station for someone else to find someday. As the original crew did."

  "That's despicable!" Sue snarled. "That's the coward's way out."

  "Do you have any better ideas?"

  "You can't stop us from telling the world what's up here!" Sue said angrily. "And I won't let you go back on your promise to turn the satellite network over to the Sunshine Tribe!"

  "I'll honor our original bargain," Harker told her. "But not till we're back on the ground. The data banks stay here and they stay silent."

  "Lou!"

  Sue glared at him demandingly. But both justice and pragmatism seemed snared by the black scientist's web of logic. It wasn't choice, it was ironclad karma, and Harker was in control.

  "At least don't condemn the world to ignorance without walking the Galactic Way yourself, Arnold," Lou said almost imploringly. "You can't understand what you're really doing until you've been there yourself. You've got us, I admit it, so what do you have to lose by experiencing the true reality?"

  "You think that will change my mind, don't you?" Harker said sharply.

  Lou nodded. "I'm convinced that it will," he said. "Convinced enough to abide by your decision with an open heart if it's made in full knowledge instead of willful ignorance. Come on, man, what do you have to lose?"

  "What do I have to lose!" Harker shrilled. "Only my humanity! Only my independent will! You're asking me to do something that you're utterly convinced will change my mind. Literally change my mind. As it has yours."

  "But only for the better, Arnold," Lou said softly, drawing upon his last reserves of patience. "Nothing bad wil
l happen to you; there's nothing but hope and good will and even joy waiting for you in the songs from the stars."

  "And of course I have your solemn word as a perfect master on that, don't I?" Harker snorted.

  "You do," Lou said evenly through gritted teeth.

  "Well, I choose not to take it," Harker said. "I choose to keep my ability to choose. You're not going to shame me into losing that. My decision stands, and there really isn't anything you can do about it, is there?"

  "You can't stop the world from learning about the Galactic Way," Lou said unhappily, sounding lame even to himself. "You can't stop Sue from spreading the story to the ends of the Earth..."

  "Lou, you're not going to let this bastard get away with it, are you?" Sue snarled. "Do something!"

  "What do you suggest?" Lou said wanly, cringing inside at what he saw in her eyes.

  Sue glared at him. He winced under her assault. "What choice do we have?" he said.

  "You Clear Blue asshole!" Sue shouted. "You... you..." She sighed. She shrugged. "I'm sorry, Lou," she said in a tiny hollow voice. "It's really not your fault."

  "It's only just..." Harker muttered in petulant triumph.

  "Just!" Sue screamed at him. "Don't squeak to me of justice, you miserable cowardly fucked-up little wretch! Just is, you don't make a decision for others that you haven't the balls to make honestly for yourself! Just is, you don't condemn a way you haven't the courage to walk! You're about as good at justice as you are at sport, Arnold, you impotent loveless little swine!"

  She grabbed Lou by the elbow and fairly dragged him toward the door. "Come on, Lou, I don't like the stink in here," she spat over her shoulder at the Spacer on the way out.

  Dazed by the violence of her energy, Clear Blue Lou didn't know what to think as he left Harker sitting there stunned by her assault. What kind of justice was this that left everyone concerned poisoned by its vibes?

  There was no way Sunshine Sue was going to get to sleep and she knew it. Venting her rage hadn't helped, making love afterward hadn't helped, and Lou's sleeping body curled up against hers in the Spartan bed was becoming something of an affront to her sleeplessness. Something she couldn't quite place was eating at her, and that in itself was starting to drive her crazy.

  Not that there wasn't enough bothering her right up front without this nagging feeling that she was missing something vital, something that was going to make her feel like an asshole or worse when it sprang its trap...

  Lou moved in his sleep against her, and she reflexively adjusted her position to accommodate the altered configuration. Making love had become almost an afterthought up here, another necessary natural function to be performed for the sake of well-being while waiting for the next go at the main business, the next excursion into the Galactic Way.

  She had only come to realize this just now because for once, personal realities had intruded into the forefront of her attention for the first time since they had journeyed to this place where the heavens touched the mind. And only because she had started out angry at Lou.

  What kind of perfect master was he? How could he have forced her to swallow this manifestly unjust situation? It was horrible, it was pointless, it was just plain stupid! To go through all these changes to reach a place that no two humans had reached before, to catch a glimmer of the galactic vastness, to rise into the consciousness of the brotherhood of all sentient beings, to become something that set you irrevocably apart from all your fellow humans... And then to be faced with the fact that you were going to be out here all alone, maybe for the rest of your life, that the whole thing was going to have to be done all over again before any of your kind could share the experience that had forever changed your spirit!

  "It's not right, it's not fair, it stinks!" she had told him as soon as they were back in the bedchamber. "How can you let this happen?"

  Lou sat down wearily on the edge of the bed. He shrugged. "How can I not let it happen?"

  "I'd be willing to risk your flying the spaceship back," Sue suggested impulsively. "We could jump Harker, tie him up, haul him to the Enterprise, and—

  Lou looked up at her strangely. "Jump him? Tie him up? I've never done anything like that to anyone in my life. Have you?"

  "You're big and strong," she cooed, sitting down beside him and squeezing his bicep. "And I can take care of myself too. We can handle him together. While you're confronting him, I can sneak up behind him and conk him with—"

  "Sue!" Lou whipped his head around. "You're talking about violating someone's free will by physical force!" He shrugged wanly. "Besides," he said, "how are we going to get a tied-up man into a spacesuit, out of the wheel, and into the spaceship?"

  "Well, he's violating our free will by... by psychic force," Sue said angrily. "He's forcing a situation that violates the free will of every human being to choose their highest possible destiny. It'd serve him right if we just snuck off in the spaceship with the memory bank tapes and left him here to die."

  Lou gave her one of those heavy green stares. "Did you hear what you just said?" he asked her sharply. "In order to elevate humanity to a higher state of consciousness, we're supposed to commit murder? I don't think you really meant that, did you?"

  "No," Sue said in a tiny little voice, and all at once she realized that the anger she felt toward Lou was entirely misplaced. He wasn't the enemy, this mess wasn't really his fault. And it wouldn't do for her to take out her frustration on him.

  For they really were irrevocably in this together in ways neither of them had dreamed existed when fate had thrown them together a few short weeks and an eternity of changes ago. They were mated to each other by something that made even the question of love seem irrelevant. As things stood now, they were the two lone members of their kind, the only humans to have walked the first halting steps of the Galactic Way, the first citizens of a nonexistent galactic stage human civilization. And if that fucker Harker had his way, they would know no others of their kind in their lifetimes.

  So she had concentrated quite earnestly on making love to Lou, on experiencing the fleshly reality of the only other human being whose spirit could even hope to share her full psychic space. The two of them were going to be together for a very long time; the task before them made that inevitable. Together they would have to make the world understand that which only they had experienced and lead their fellow humans to their galactic birthright. Strangers to the world, they could hardly afford to be less than lovers to each other. Fate had thrown them together as much as love; it was destiny, kiddo, kismet, and if you forced yourself, you could think of that as pretty damn romantic.

  But it wasn't enough to let her sleep. That son of a bitch Harker had contrived to poison even what love they might share by turning it into the prospect of a lifelong psychic exile. And he and those like him would be fighting them back on Earth every inch of the way while they sought to end it by bringing humans back to the Big Ear and their galactic destiny. While the songs from the stars waited up here for—

  "Oh shit," Sue hissed aloud, sitting bolt upright.

  If Harker was so determined to protect humanity from what was on those tapes might he not simply destroy them?

  Now you're really getting paranoid! she told herself. Nevertheless, she carefully disentangled herself from Lou, crept out of the bed, slid into her clothes, and glided out into the endless silent corridor.

  Listening for errant sounds, she padded barefoot up the curve of the corridor toward the main computer room. Silence, except for the hum of distant machinery and the subliminal groanings of the great wheel as it revolved through space.

  The door to the main computer room was ajar. The working lights were on.

  Cautiously, she flattened herself against the wall next to the door and peered inside.

  Arnold Harker sat slumped over in one of the seats of the galactic receiver. Memory bank tapes were piled high in the center of the room amidst wads of paper kindling. Sue watched him for long moments, deciding what to
do. He didn't move. Sue shrugged to herself. She sighed. She took a deep breath.

  Then she kicked the door wide open and burst into the room. " All right, Arnold, what the hell are you doing?"

  The black scientist didn't twitch. He didn't move. He didn't utter a sound.

  Sue slowly walked over to him. Arnold Harker's mouth hung open in a slack-jawed grimace, and his sightless eyes had rolled to the top of their sockets. He was dead.

  Nobody Promised You a Rose Garden

  "He must've found the poison that the original crew took," Clear Blue Lou said, throwing a sheet over Arnold Harker's horribly staring dead face. He turned to Sue, curling an arm around her. "Are you all right?"

  "As all right as I'm going to be," she said in a trembling voice, burrowing her head into his shoulder. "Oh Lou... why...? Why...?" A single sob wracked her body.

  Of course, she had been mightily upset when she woke him, as who wouldn't be, finding the ugly lifeless shell of what had once been a living human being. But he sensed that she suffered something beyond that. For she might very well feel that she had in a sense willed this to happen, and her last words to Harker had been snarled in anger. Now she felt that he had died with her denying his humanity, that perhaps, in some unfathomable way, she had somehow pushed him to this. That now that Harker had removed himself as an obstacle to her will by his own hand, this all-too-convenient death somehow tainted her soul.

  If he didn't realize that this feeling was as much his own as hers, he wouldn't be Clear Blue Lou. But if on another level he couldn't honestly hold the two of them blameless in his own court of justice, he wouldn't be Clear Blue Lou either.

  Unknown destiny had done this to Harker, not their deed or even will. No one had willfully sought to sour anyone else's karma, perhaps not even poor Harker inside his own reality. Indeed, neither of them could even fathom why he had killed himself.

  But the man was indisputably dead by his own hand. And it could not be denied that they had perhaps willfully blinded themselves to whatever psychic process had finally led him to take his own life. Absorbed in the wonder of the Galactic Way, they had stood by while Harker followed his way to destruction. They had allowed his own coldness of spirit to make them forget that behind that impenetrable carapace of scenarios and self-assumed superiority there had been a brother human spirit with fears and agonies and passions like any other man. They had never really known that Arnold Harker. They had never really tried.