“Where’s the music?”
Ken Fasta Petrillo was gone now, dead, but his words lingered in Damon’s mind. What could be in that vial that would make a man with unequaled guitar skills abandon his genius in favor of elusive notes that no one else could hear?
The queen mother’s music… so beautiful.
…Fulfilling me, nourishing me.
It keeps getting more exquisite, more captivating… so much more sublime.
I can do this, Damon thought. I’m much stronger than Ken ever was, much more in control of myself and my destiny. If Ken could try and then kick Ice and StarGazer— and he did—I can do the same with jelly. I am a true artist; my love and dedication to my work is worth the risk, worth the pain of recovery, worth everything.
Perhaps it was the lack of sleep that made him vulnerable and trivialized his fears and the well-known warnings, let him brush aside the human evidence that wandered the streets every day. Most likely it was soul-deep desire that enabled him to reason away his fears as he picked up the jelly vial to inspect it—
—then uncapped it, rolled the delicate vial in his palms, and drank.
He had expected it to be tasteless; instead the inside of his mouth was bathed in the flavor of scorched cotton candy and, strangely, rich red wine…
Awake, Damon dreamed.
No longer did he watch Mozart from the protected side of the apiary. He was Mozart—
In the womb. His first inkling of sentience was the demand to be free, to be out of this hot and confining space, to still the unceasing thudding of its foster-creature’s heart and feed on it—
Birth. Ripping clear of the birth enclosure with wet, red fury, so much energy and hunger, turning it all against the corpse of the being that had hosted him—
Growing. Voracious appetite barely appeased by cold, dead flesh as his body swelled and split his first bloody brown carapace, stretched again and formed legs and arms, magnificent in the sinewy power and brutal strength as they reached far above his sharp-toothed head. A final evolution and he was complete, massive, unstoppable—
And FREE! Charging the flimsy transparent walls that held him, feeling them crack under his blows like so much ancient crystal. The world beyond was like a table prepared for him, and he feasted mercilessly on those fools who had made him beg for the smallest of necessities, his parents, the nightclub owners when he was a youth, Keene and his fat witch of a secretary. Then he moved on and up, to Yoriku, whose company had patronized and laughed at him, ridiculed him under the guise of a helpful sponsor; he reveled in the feeling of the man’s head splitting between his massive jaws, tasted human blood as it jetted between the razored teeth of his double mouths. Not yet finished, he took his rage to the city and its children, vented his unchecked hate as he worked to slaughter thousands amid the cruel, lazy public, all those people too stupid to know what pure sound was, too idiotic to appreciate the beauty of true music. But through it all—
Silence.
Total, maddening. In his rage and his joy, as he reveled in the carnage he created, every time he opened his splendid mouth with its row upon row of sharp and lovely spears, not a scream came out.
Not a hiss, or a cry. Not a single beautiful shriek.
Or a note of music.
* * *
Damon gave his own howl when he came back to himself as the frigid blue light of dawn trickled through the windows of the loft. The perspiration streaming down his forehead felt like ice water, the soaked strands of his hair like sharp icicles against his chilled skin. It would have been so good, if only—If only. The next best thing, he thought acidly as he wadded up the blanket and threw it across the room along with the emptied jelly vial, to someday.
Wasn’t that always the way?
* * *
Vance and Brangwen were already in the apiary, puttering around their equipment and sensors like the dutiful little Synsound laborers they were. Damon ignored them, dismissed the startled looks on their freshly scrubbed faces as he marched to the glass of Mozart’s cage and raised his fists over his head. “I want to hear it!” he roared. “I want to hear the music! Sing for me, damn you—come on!” Damon’s voice rose to a scream and he pounded on the window.
The fire-tempered quartz didn’t so much as vibrate under the composer’s onslaught. Mozart hunkered down momentarily and swung his dark, elongated head from side to side a few times, but the only sound the three humans heard through the speakers was a soft, low hiss. After a few moments the alien turned the spiny expanse of his back to the window and retreated as far as he could go into the shadows at the far end of the enclosure.
Damon whirled, making both bioengineers flinch and step back. The skin beneath his dark eyes looked as though it had been painted with a wash of deep violet; his hair was wild and falling into his eyes. He slapped it away. “Get something for him,” he demanded. “Something he can fight something he can kill.”
Vance frowned. “Like what?”
“I don’t care,” Damon snarled. “Whatever you can get your hands on. Just make sure it’s alive when he gets to it.
“I want to hear him scream with joy when he rips it apart!”
15
“Well, here they are,” Brangwen said unnecessarily as he set the two cages on the floor next to the feeding door. He was puffing from exertion and completely stressed out by those fools down at the animal shelter. What difference did it make to them what he did with the animals, he wondered irritably, when it meant two fewer animal mouths for the city to feed?
Both Darcy and Mr. Eddington came forward curiously while Michael shrugged off the green jacket he’d worn to the shelter. He wasn’t a total idiot; they’d never have given him the cat and the dog had they seen his lab coat. As it was, he’d lied through his teeth on the adoption forms. Yes, there’s someone home to walk and feed them; no, I won’t have the cat declawed.
“What did you get?” Damon asked eagerly.
Michael thought the man was looking worse with each passing hour. Gone was the unique, deep-thinking gaze that had impressed Michael so much; in its place on Eddington’s face was a mask of gaunt desperation. “A cat and a dog,” Michael said testily. “That’s what we all agreed on.”
“I know that,” Eddington said sharply. “What kind?”
Darcy bent and undid the catches on the smaller carrier, then flipped open the lid. Wide yellow eyes surrounded by a ruff of thick orange fur stared mistrustfully up at her, and the feline meowed harshly as she lifted it from the box. Darcy ignored the noise and scratched the cat’s head. “Tabby,” she said simply. “In other words, your basic alley cat.”
The look Damon directed at the cat was clearly disappointed. “What about the dog?”
Michael shrugged. “Who knows? A street mutt, maybe a little larger than most. Enough scars to see he’s been around awhile and probably knows how to fight. Take a look.” He flipped the latch on the dog’s case and opened the door, then reached inside and found the leash still attached to the dog’s collar. After a few seconds of steady tugging, the dog came out. Not particularly friendly, it kept its ears flat against its skull as it eyed the room and its occupants with suspicion; it didn’t bother to acknowledge the cat in Darcy’s arms. The dog’s tail stayed tucked protectively between its legs.
“Crap,” Damon said in disgust. “The thing probably doesn’t weigh forty pounds.”
“Forty-two,” Michael said pointedly. “And he’s the biggest one they had. When I told them I was interested in something bigger, they told me anything larger than forty-five pounds is euthanized if it’s not picked up by the owner within two days. They’re so seldom adopted that they don’t even bother offering them to the public.” Michael watched as Eddington extended his hand toward the dog experimentally and the dog gave a low growl and backed up a couple of steps until it hit the end of the leash. “At least he’s not fawning over us,” he offered.
“He might as well be,” Eddington grunted. “He’s too small to do muc
h else.”
“There’s always the newspaper,” Darcy suggested. “We could check out the ads, see if we could come up with something better.”
Michael looked doubtful. “I think those are almost always puppies. Most people who get rid of full-grown dogs are picky about where they go. You know, the ‘free to good home’ syndrome.”
“Well, this is what we’ve got, so let’s just try them and see what happens,” Eddington cut in. “Maybe they’ll do the trick.” He turned his back and headed for his recording console and Michael shot a glance at Darcy. Her shrug and curt nod said it all.
I doubt it.
* * *
“Okay, I’m ready.” For the first time since he’d barged into the apiary this morning ranting like a madman, Eddington looked almost like his old self again—alert, eager, his eyes sharp and focused as his gaze tracked Mozart in his cage. “You can put them in anytime.”
“Here we go,” Michael said. He inclined his head and Darcy gave a final, companionable rub on the cat’s head. The thing had been purring for the last ten minutes, and although Darcy’s face was as cool and expressionless as it always was, Michael was certain she felt like a traitor to the animal.
But work came first, and she leaned over and pushed the tabby into the smaller, one-way feeding channel that led to Mozart’s cage. “So long, furball.”
Without letting himself think about it, Michael did the same with the dog, avoiding a bite when he shoved on the dog’s rump only because the interlocking entry valves automatically closed and prevented the dog from coming back at him. “He’s in.”
“There you go, Mozart,” Darcy said softly as she knelt close to the window and peered into the alien’s cage. “A couple of visitors for you.”
Michael saw Damon tense at his console, then jab the Record button as Mozart caught sight of the animals and stalked toward them. The older man’s breath caught in his throat, and he had a fleeting moment of empathy for the composer. What would the alien sound like when he screamed? Would it be as beautiful as Damon believed? A sound trickled through the speakers, but it was devastatingly disappointing: nothing more than one of Mozart’s dark hisses, a sound that reminded Michael, and no doubt Damon and Darcy, of a noise he’d heard only from filmdiscs… the drawn-out sizzling of red-hot iron dipped in water. The cat squalled suddenly, followed immediately by an admirably savage snarl from the dog that made Michael’s eyes widen: whatever the canine had learned from life on the streets, it had become quite adept at making itself sound larger than it was.
But for Mozart… hardly a challenge. A blur of bluish-black motion and it was done, as difficult to Mozart as stepping on an ant was to a man, like the hand of God descending and wiping out someone or something’s existence with barely a warning. Four seconds of silence, and Damon’s shoulders slumped as he pressed the End Record button. “It’s not enough,” he said dejectedly. “These animals were… they were nothing. Nothing. Can you hear him now? He’s laughing at us, for God’s sake. Cats, dogs—to him these are only contemptible amusements.” His hands came up and he rubbed jerkily at his face, then looked at his palms oddly. Michael wondered briefly if Eddington was hallucinating. “We need to get something bigger. Sheep, cows, bulls, for God’s sake. If we don’t give him something he finds competitive, this is all he’ll ever give us. Hissing—nothing more.”
Neither bioengineer said anything but Darcy’s eyes were narrow as she glanced Michael’s way. It wasn’t difficult for Michael to remember their unspoken exchange earlier today.
I doubt it.
* * *
The cow turned out to be about as worthless as the sheep did, and privately Michael thought the apiary was starting to smell like a barnyard as well as occasionally sound like one. He had been vaguely worried that people on the streets would notice the crates on the loading docks outside and wonder why a concert hall would be unloading animals, but no one ever did; once inside and emptied, the containers stunk of animal sweat and manure, and the group was stuck with them for days until workmen were found who were security-cleared to come into the apiary to haul them away. Michael had seen Darcy, whose demeanor was usually so cool and unaffected, sniffing the arm of her jacket with a repulsed look on her face as she realized that the smell of the animals was seeping into all their clothes. The alien had made short work of the cow, which had done nothing but freeze in place and low mournfully as Mozart disemboweled it. The sheep had been quicker and had at least given Mozart something to chase, but its end was swift and produced only a few pathetic, panicked bleats on Damon’s recording.
* * *
The three of them endured each other’s monotonous company for four endless days before the crate from India finally arrived. The creature inside it packed a lot more force and raw strength than anything they’d pitted against the Homeworld life-form so far. As revolted as he was by the continued killings and by the sight of Mozart’s messy but methodical feasting afterward, the expectant atmosphere was contagious and Michael couldn’t help being excited about the struggle to come—though not nearly as electrified as Eddington was. When the crate finally arrived, Eddington had become so much of a basket case that he could barely communicate with Michael and Darcy; his words tumbled over each other and he left sentences dangling and directions incomplete. It was a good thing the two bioengineers had worked enough with Eddington to know the details of each attempted recording session.
“Get ready to let him loose,” Eddington said. His voice was shrill. “One, two, three—now!” He slammed a hand onto the Record button and watched, eyes bulging, gaze fixed on the view into the cage, ears attuned to every pinpoint of sound the earphones would feed into his head.
The workmen had carefully prepositioned the crate at the entrance to Mozart’s cage and made the hook-ups, and now Darcy hit the lever that simultaneously lifted the front of the shipping container and slid open the largest of the entries into the alien’s enclosure. Inside, Mozart advanced almost carelessly, lulled by the docile animals pitted against him before now, expecting another easy kill and subsequent meal.
Stupid but ill-tempered, the wild gaur bull shook its head and snorted, then lowered its head and lumbered all the way into the cage. When its red-rimmed eyes fixed on the alien, it bellowed. The noise was loud and long, and the animal sounded like a massive horn reverberating inside the chamber; the sound rose and fell, punctuated with the huffing of its solid breathing as it leaped sideways, hoofs scraping across the textured plastic of the floor in a move surprisingly quick for an animal of its size and bulk. Still unsuspecting, Mozart went into a half crouch and began to advance as the gaur bull tensed and its massive head dropped as far as it could on its shoulders, stronger, this one clearly a warning. Mozart moved closer, unaffected by the animal’s noise, still apparently assuming this was another of the placid creatures he’d faced over the past week. It was a significant misjudgment, and the alien was unprepared for the bull’s heavy-bodied charge and the long, curving horn that pierced his left side, sliding neatly under the row of armored ribs as the steer’s weight drove him backward. Acid blood sprayed the bull’s face and it went crazy with pain, lurching and almost going down on forelegs that suddenly seemed far too small to support its weight. Its bawls filled the speakers, escalating to a frenzy as Mozart’s screams of pain and fury joined in and the alien began swiping at the bull with razor-edged claws, splitting the animal’s thick hide in a dozen places.
Outside the cage, Michael glanced quickly at Darcy, then at Eddington. The musician was rapt with attention, his fingers sailing over the dials and levers on the recording console. “Listen to him sing,” Eddington managed. He raised one hand, spread the fingers, then folded them into a fist. “It’s wonderful… like catching lightning in your hands!”
A roar of agony poured through the speakers. Michael spun back to the cage’s window and saw that Mozart had his long, sharp fingers wrapped around his opponent’s horns. Suddenly the alien twisted his lower body so that his t
ail was at right angles to the rest of him and flipped the segmented length of flesh like a whip against the bull’s muscled flank. As the Synsound team watched through the window, transfixed, the gaur bellowed louder and tried to pull away, only to find Mozart’s tail wrapped securely around its brawny shoulders.
In a final, thunderous bout of speaker fuzz, Mozart ripped the bull’s head completely off its torso.
For a few seconds there was silence. The alien flung its trophy aside and backed away, as if waiting to see if the bull would somehow rise to challenge him again. Darcy and Michael stared at the blood spray on the walls inside the cage, looking through a spatter of red that oddly enough resembled… freckles.
Then Eddington sighed and punched a button on the console; the red Light overhead that announced “Recording” immediately flicked off. “Tremendous,” Eddington announced. “But too damned short.” He made a fist again and held it close to his chest, as though he were trying to calm his pounding heart. His grin was dark and full of potential as he contemplated the things to come. “Now we know what he needs, though, what will make him truly sing. He needs something like himself that can hurt him, something that will make him the victim rather than the hunter.”
* * *
Thus far, Darcy had been the person elected to approach Ahiro on an as-needed basis, and she didn’t hesitate now. She had no idea how or what Ahiro was going to do to make Eddington happy, but that was his problem. One need only do the math to figure it out: she and Michael could merely work with what they had. If Ahiro did not supply the raw material, they could not be held responsible for a lack of results.
Darcy was becoming more suspicious about Eddington by the hour, but when she voiced her concerns to Michael, he brushed them off. “Don’t worry about it,” Michael said. “You’re probably right; more than likely, he is addicted to something or other. So what? You know the statistics. Eighty percent of the artist and musician population are users. They take everything from jelly to marijuana, though the green stuff’s nearly impossible to get now. Most of them will die before they see age forty.”
Aliens Omnibus 4 Page 13