by Judyth Baker
Then he began to play.
Limpid, luscious, forbidden sounds flowed from the flute. Sounds that enchanted the soul, betrayed the imagination, led into the foreboden. John covered his eyes and let the music wash over him as the waves of a great green sea. Sparks of flame spun past his inner vision and his heart was pounding. Music! This was music!
No Pied Piper could have had such an effect on these children. The color rushed into their faces, they found their feet tapping, they thrust out their chests and began clapping their hands! As the music continued, tears began streaming down their cheeks. The flute spoke of feelings they scarcely knew, of skies filled with stars, of forests as far as the eye could see. They could see horses and deer running through the glades, masses of flowers bursting into color on every wooded hill, and above it all, they could hear their own voices, with their parents, as they sang together the songs upon songs implanted in their brains, passed on from generation to generation, the songs of old, coming alive from their very genes. And it could be heard only in these insulated rooms, this music, which the flute brought back to life. Life was good! Life was beautiful! Life was freedom!
Suddenly, the music stopped. The flautist lowered his flute.
“We will never forget!” he told them. “Though they forbid it forever, we will never forget!”
The screen went blank. John looked down at the small flute he had been given. He raised it to his lips and blew a sad, solitary note.
“Put it away, John,” his father said. “In time, you, or your son, or your son’s son, will play it on the surface of the wide world. But that time has not yet come.”
“It is because of the Music of the Spheres,” Aphrodite explained, as they sat down again. “The Strangers Who Came to Earth explained it to us long ago.”
“The Cosmos is enormous,” Socrates said. “It is studded with galaxies. The galaxies themselves are filled with stars. Every star has planets, moons, asteroids. Many of them have life, such as our own planet. What we never knew, until it was too late, is that the galaxies sing.”
“They sing?” Sophia asked.
“They sing as a flute sings,” Aphrodite told them.4 “Now you will learn what the Priests have saved for us.”
At her words, Socrates pointed to the big wall-screen, which vanished at the gesture. Then, with a circle-eight motion of his father’s finger against the wall, John saw a small door, which opened automatically to reveal a blue chamber. John would never have guessed it was there, amidst all the decorative roughness of the stonework.
“You must remember this location, and the signal I have showed you with my fingers,” Socrates told his children. “Here we keep the holiest secrets.” Among the various boxes, they could see a small black cube, which began vibrating at Socrates’ touch. As their father brought the box carefully from its place, his skin turned white as marble and he stamped his strong, powerful foot against the floor three times. John and Sophia both leaned eagerly forward, but Socrates shook his head again, “Don’t touch it,” he warned. “I must add your DNA signatures.” First, for John, he tapped a coded rhythm onto the top of the cube. “Memorize it,” he urged his son, repeating the rhythm. When he was satisfied that John had memorized the pattern, Socrates conducted the same ritual with Sophia. By the time he was finished, tiny ridges of some jellylike substance had appeared, as if alive, atop the cube.
“Now, we mingle our blood with yours,” Aphrodite said, as she took the cube. Her beautiful blue hair was braided up in the traditional style used in all the sacred ceremonies. She closed her eyes, waited a moment, then handed the black cube back to Socrates,
“Now, it’s your turn,” Socrates told his son. “Hold it tight. Don’t drop it.”
When John did so, a tiny needle pricked his finger.
“Tap it as I showed you,” his father said. “Then, hand it to your sister.”
After Sophia returned the cube to Socrates, the cube’s surface flattened out again and its shiny surface was once more a solid. “Now our blood is mingled together,” Aphrodite told them. “Now we have the same Guide.”
“Next, I must ask the question,” Socrates told them. “Then, something wonderful will happen. After it is over, I will replace the cube in the secret place, and this sacred ceremony will be finished.”
“Touch the cube with us, as your father asks the question,” Aphrodite whispered.
Together, they placed their hands on the cube, as Socrates said, in the voice of a child, “Daddy, when can we go outside?”
Daddy, when can we go outside?
This was the question that was always asked. One day, they would get the answer.
As these words were spoken, a white, shimmering Orb flew up from the black cube and hovered above it. “Bow your heads!” their father commanded: everyone did so. “Don’t look directly at it!”
“It is an electromagnetic orb,” Aphrodite told them. “Every Priest’s family has one. We see it only once a year, when it offers us wisdom for the time ahead.”
The Orb hovered over each of them for a brief moment, then came to rest on the black cube.
“We will talk to each other now, guided by the Orb’s influence,” Aphrodite explained. “Thoughts will come to you. Speak what comes into your mind.”
“Where did the Orb come from?” Sophia asked, rubbing her blue eyes with her hands, which, due to her excitement, were speckled with flashing dots.
“The Strangers gave these orbs to us,” Socrates told her. “We are the only survivors left with human genes. We, who came from Greece, who carry the legends of the ancient Greeks in our very souls. To us their Priests, were given these Wise Orbs. They are semi-alive, created with DNA signals from me, your mother and now you. It will never respond to anyone’s touch but ours. If any of us should die.”
“Does death really happen?” John blurted out.
“You just don’t hear about it,” Socrates said gently. “It’s not polite to bring it up. When we say a journey has been taken to the Surface, that’s what it means. I will probably be dead in another two hundred years. Long ago, when we decided that we would never be more than 49% Cyborg, we chose the course that eventually leads to death. So finally, we do die. But because we will die, we are allowed to have a son and a daughter to take our place. You, our children, are renewing our race. But Cyborgs could only replicate themselves.”
The children had recently viewed a display of dismembered, decapitated Cyborgs, the last of their kind, which the keepers called “Spiders.” They had eight arms. There were pictures of their heads, with dozens of eyes encircling them like black beads. They had discarded their original shapes, which had been like humans, for a more efficient kind of body that could spin webs, from which they could hang. This saved space, which they filled with metallic constructions of all kinds that generated energy and their own particular kind of music. Because of its frequency, their music was fatal to most living things. However, humans fought back by inventing the Sacred Paint,5 which they would spread all over their bodies whenever they left their insulated homes. It had saved them and their pets, though the time came when they were forced to live their whole lives underground.
As John considered these things, the Orb suddenly moved to hover in the air in front of him.
“John,” his father said, “The Orb wishes to tell you something, but you must give it permission to do so.”
“How?”
Handing the box to his son, Socrates said, “Tap the rhythm I showed you. In the center of the box.”
As John tapped the code, the Orb turned bluish. As it hovered just above his hand, a pattern appeared, filled with twists that looked like magnified DNA. John could feel some pressure on the back of his hand.
“Let it guide your hand,” Socrates told him. “It’s a very light pressure – go as it pushes you.”
John had to stand to reach where the Orb was so gently pressing: it was about a half-meter above the back of the couch upon which they sat. Suddenly, th
e Orb streaked against the wall and vanished into it. As it did so, a small, circular door opened, and a tightly-wrapped cylinder, which seemed to be made of a semi-translucent substance, slowly purred out of the space within, riding on some kind of invisible engine. When John reached out his hand, the scroll dropped into it, and the opening closed.
“This is extraordinary!” Socrates exclaimed. He was staring at his son, whose skin was flaring in red and blue patches from pure excitement. “Whatever you do, don’t drop the Scroll!”
“What now?” Sophia asked, stepping back.
“He has to eat it,” Aphrodite declared.
“I have to eat it?”
“Eat it!’” His father repeated sternly. “Don’t wait! You’ve been selected to receive some special information.”6
Aphrodite, trembling, added, “Could this be the Time?”
Never had an Orb given a Scroll to any child. The scrolls were historically few in number, hidden from the people, released only to the Priests during times of emergencies. The last known scroll predicted a mighty flood into the main chambers of the city: just in time, they had fled to the higher regions and escaped death.
What was coming next? John took the scroll by the long end and bit into it.
“It’s sweet,” he said. “Tastes good.”
“Eat all of it,” his father commanded.
As he swallowed the last of the scroll, John began emanating light. His eyes rolled up in his head. Kicking out his legs, he fell to the floor, gripping his belly. “I’m going to vomit!” he groaned. Anxiously, they knelt down around him, as John turned his head from side to side, foam bubbling at the corners of his mouth.
“My son!” Aphrodite cried, throwing her arms around him and lifting his head, “oh, my son!” As she began to weep, John raised a shaky hand.
“I have a message…” he said, his voice hoarse with strain. “Gather the people!”
* * *
They came, the great and the small, the old and the young. They brought their animals, their pets, their potted plants, their seeds and seedlings, their tools, their books, and their clothing. They brought their beloved horses, goats, and dogs. They gathered at the Sealed Shaft, where the battered head of 8KL88-Mother Teresa-Version 422 was encased in a crystal shrine. They came to listen to the words of a twelve-year-old boy, who was brought slowly forward. He came leading a white horse, the symbol of purity. As he stood gazing at them, the seals of the Shaft that led up to the outside world were smashed apart by his white horse, with great kicks and blows. The sight brought screams of fear from the people. But the boy-priest was not afraid, so they calmed themselves.
Then from his mouth came the words that had been written on the Scroll.
“People of the Kentauroi!”7 he cried out. “You once lived on the surface of one of the Pure Blue-Green Singing Notes of the Universe. Your world sang a rare song in its orbit around its star.8 Thanks to the clouds, the mountains, the seas and the sun, this planet’s blue-green note was perfectly tuned. Along with Saturn, Jupiter,9 and the other superb planets, a Sublime Chord of harmonics pleasing to the ear of The Great Musician resonated through the Universe. Your Blue-Green Planet sang its Note beautifully for over a billion years, until it became infested with metallic sub-beings and millions of the cruelest of humans, who burned its green forests, polluted its blue waters, flattened its mountains, and covered all its surface with energy-eating tiles. Then the oceans were thrown from the earth to form a huge ring of ice as the metallic beings spread their kind, destroying every trace of life they could find. In the end, they even turned on the last humans who had helped them ruin everything.”
The people, astonished, began stamping upon the ground, expressing their anxiety.
“Be silent!” the boy-priest commanded them. “Hear the words of the scroll that I have eaten! The Blue-Green Planet had lost its tune. Your Galaxy’s Symphonic Chorus suddenly had a sour note. Your planet had to be re-tuned. We found some few among the wretched half-beings, and they were inspired to hide you. To save you few with human genes. You alone were saved because your ancient ways showed respect for the Music of the Spheres.”
The boy leaped up and grabbed the golden bridle of the white horse, holding it tight as a military saddle was fitted onto the Priest’s back, symbolizing the weight of leadership that he would have to carry from now on. There he waited, the horse he held half-rearing with excitement, its flaring nostrils red-rimmed, its mane shaking against the reins. “As this great horse is our servant, and toils for us,” John called out, “nevertheless, he is guided by his bridle, not by a whip! So we will also be masters of all the earth, but with bridles, not whips!”
The crowd roared its approval: then, as the crowd quieted again, the young Priest continued his speech.
“The infestation of the metal Cyborgs wiped out humanity from the face of the earth –only we were saved – but that infestation has finally been eradicated. All Cyborgs, including those still clinging to any human genetic material, are now beyond reconstruction, their last traces of DNA destroyed by their own hand. The ring of ice that silenced the music once gracing your world died with them. As the ice ring cracked to pieces, its remnants became meteors that crashed to the earth. Within the ice, life was suspended, ready to burst forth. Finally, the Strangers brought back many creatures and plants from the dying colonies on Mars and on the Moon, where they would have thrived, had they only had compassion for each other. It took over a thousand years, but the world has been put in tune again.”
The young priest waved his arm in a grand gesture of joy. “People of the Kentauroi! Hear me! The oceans have returned! The forests have returned! And music has returned, both to the earth and to us!”
What could this mean? Most of the people had no real concept of what oceans and forests were. That was the stuff of fairytales and legends. And music? That was forbidden entirely. Wasn’t it?
As the people stood there, confused and hopeful, John led the white horse to the doorway of the great mine-shaft that reached up, it was said, to the surface of the world. The horse, led by its golden bridle, almost danced toward the doorway, as if it understood that it would soon be able to gallop, unimpeded, easy and free, across long stretches of wasteland, plains and valleys.
“When I touch this door,” the young Priest cried out, “it will open, and you will be carried up by the machines that were placed here centuries ago. The same machines that put you deep into this dark world, so long ago, will surely bring you to the surface again. There will be many dangers. The sun is still harsh and will burn you: take care! There will be pain and trouble, but the wide world is there, singing its song, and you will once more sing with it…” He paused and gazed out over the multitude.
“Are you ready?”
The people shouted as One, with a roar that echoed through every tunnel and passed through every door.
“You entered these caves few in number,” John told them. “Now you will return in your thousands. Go forth and multiply! Sing a good song! Sing it with the earth! Never let the earth’s song go sour again!”
Then the people marched forth into the huge elevators, family by family, and when they reached the surface, they gasped at the wonders they saw. They saw trees, waterfalls, blue skies, and the sun that blinded them if they looked too long. Long ago, human beings had destroyed this world with Cyborgs and ruthless greed. The last human genes had been saved because they had gone undetected, mingled with equus, blended with equus, and so humanity in a new and ancient form was saved. Now the centaurs – half human, half horse – were free to gallop joyfully through the opened gates, carrying their flutes, their food in their saddles, and their children in their arms.
Endnotes
1. “Almost all marine bioluminescence is blue in color… blue-green light (wavelength around 470 nm) transmits furthest in water. The reason that underwater photos usually look blue is because red light is quickly absorbed as you descend…[also,] most organisms are sensitive
only to blue light – they lack the visual pigments which can absorb longer (yellow, red) or shorter (indigo, ultraviolet) wavelengths. A notable exception to this “rule” is Malacosteid family of fishes (known as Loosejaws), which produce red light and are able to see this light.…” Dragon fish are in this family. In this scenario, skin scales and aborted fetuses from humans provided the base food source. http://biolum.eemb.ucsb.edu/organism/dragon.html Retrieved July 1, 2015.
2 All these fish can eat algae.
3. Powdered Kombu seaweed roots can make a “tea” similar to bullion. It is high in glutamate, iodine, calcium, iron and fiber. While it lowers cholesterol and may boost the immune system, Kombu tea may provide too much glutamate, which can over-excite the brain’s neurons and exacerbate degenerative nerve diseases. Generally, the body produces its own glutamate.
4. Facts behind “The Music of the Spheres”: “Any natural sound can be described as a combination of sine waves. These pure tones… are always combined… to form even the simplest sound. It’s the manner of their distribution in the sound that forms the color of that sound, the so-called timbre. This is the single feature that makes a note played on a violin different from the exact same note played on a flute. Some terminology you should know:
A partial is any of the sine waves by which a complex tone is described.
A harmonic (or a harmonic partial) is any of a set of partials that are whole number multiples of a common fundamental frequency. This set includes the fundamental, which is a whole number multiple of itself (1 times itself).
Electronic synthesizers are capable of playing pure frequencies with no overtones… [JVB: Consider this the Cyborg Preference] although they usually combine frequencies into more complex tones to simulate other instruments. The timbre of the flute is actually very poor in overtones, and that’s why it is often regarded as the instrument with the purest sound. In fact, it has just enough overtones to make it sound infinitely nicer than a pure sine wave, which as you might have noticed gives a rather dull feeling.