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"Hey, take it easy, Mr. Maslin," Ragsdale said, placing a soothing hand on
the smaller man's shoulders. "Here, have some tea, and take a break."
"No time. We have no time to take a break," Maslin muttered, but he allowed
the security chief to assist him off the bench, and over to a camp stool.
The uninjured and ambulatory members of the landing party had gathered in
an encouraging group about the synthesizer. Also joining the humans were
the cubs. They sat in a polite and very interested circle about the
synthesizer, but nothing Mashn tried drew any response from the Tkygetians.
They sat like cuddly little stuffed animals on a toy store's shelves, their
mouths tipped in that never-ending smile, and their blue eyes happy and
alert.
At sunset a mournful wind had risen which occasionally sent particles of
sand stinging into their faces, and whipped their parkas about their
trembling bodies. Only one moon was up this night, and it raced across the
sky with the clouds scudding now and then across its pale, luminous face.
It was terribly cold, and Spock had ordered that every available heater and
all the lights be placed around the instrument. Maslin looked fragile,
almost transparent, and the Vulcan had begun to fear that he would not live
long enough to find the solution that might save the Enterprise.
Ragsdale thrust a steaming mug of tea into Maslin's hands, and Uhura
wrapped her arms about his slight body, holding him close as she would a
child. He sighed, and rested his head on her shoulder. His eyes were two
hollows of blackness, and McCoy edged closer to Spock.
"I can't give him any more cordrazine."
"I know."
"He's dying before our eyes."
"We are all staring into that void, Doctor. If Mr. Maslin's efforts can
save us then we must allow him to continue."
"Better one than all of us, huh?" McCoy grunted.
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"It is the mor& .. P
"Don't say it, Spock," McCoy said. "I really don't think I can stand to
hear that word one more time."
"Why won't they respond to me?" Maslin asked, his voice small as he huddled
within the folds of his parka. "I'm doing everything right, I know I am."
"I'm sure you are," Uhura said , stroking his hair. "Maybe they just can't
relate to us."
"But music is music," he objected, struggling a bit to sit UP.
"I know, I know," she said soothingly as she would to a frightened foal,
and held him still, trying to force him to relax. "Guy, it's not your
fault."
"Then whose fault is it?" he demanded. ,rm the big hotshot who was supposed
to solve all the problems!"
"Without you we wouldn't even have gotten this far."
"I don't want to die on this ball of dirt," he suddenly whispered. "I want
to go home, marry you, write my symphony."
Uhura swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. "You won't, and you
will."
'Then you will marry me?" he asked, his face recovering a measure of that
devil-may-care expression that she had learned to love.
"Did you ever doubt it?"
'You wouldnt have married me that first night."
"No," she agreed with a laugh. "I thought you were aterninable."
"And now?" he asked, his eyes pleading with her.
"I love you," she said simply, and then looked about with embarrassment,
hoping that they hadn't been overheard. She noted with relief that the rest
of the landing party had drawn politely away from them.
He reached up and cupped her cheek in one hand. She turned her head to
press a quick kiss into the palm of his hand, and was alarmed and upset by
the icy coldness of his
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skin. She quickly gathered his hands in hers, and began to breathe on them.
"No," he said, pulling his hands free, and sliding them around her body.
"Give me that breath where it will do me some good."
She nodded, and they kissed. It was a desperate, clinging embrace, and in
that moment she wished that they could just forget this desperate
struggling to survive. All she wanted was to crawl away into their tent,
and lie in his arms until death came to take them both. Tears burned in her
eyes, and she could feel the warm traff as they overflowed and slid down
her cheeks. He kissed away the salty moisture, then held her face between
his hands, and stared at her.
"Don't cry, my darling. We don't have the time for that kind of
self-indulgence."
"What should I do then?" she asked, forcing a smile to her lips.
"Sing for me."
"What would you like to bear?"
"Something I wrote-naturally," he said with a flash of his old sardonic
humor.
"Naturally."
She cast about, and finally decided on a delicate little arietta that he
had written for her in those first days when he had come aboard the
Enterprise. He had used a bit of Italian verse from the seventeenth century
for the text, and she loved the little song with a passion surpassing any
other Piece of music. She cradled him once more in her arms, and began to
sing. The landing party gathered around to listen, and even the cubs ceased
their constant warblings and joined in the circle, listening with the
greatest of mterest.
"Lawi ancoreposare un shinco, un stanco. " Her rich, warm voice reached a
long sustained note, and the pure tone spun like a crystal ball supported
by the arching waters of a fountain. There was a melodic sigh from the
lkygetian cubs, and Guy's eyes flew open.
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"My God! My God! My God!" he kept repeating as he struggled to his feet.
"What? What is it?" Uhura cried, alarmed by his agitation. She leaped to
her feet and caught him by the arm, trying to stop his frenzied pacings.
"That's it, that's it."
"What?" Kali broke in.
"What's it?" came a chorus of voices.
"Please calm down!" came an order from McCoy that was ignored.
"Don't you see?" Maslin demanded, whirling on Spock and reaching out for
the Vulcan with desperate hands. "We've been working instrumentally! Their
whole orientation is vocal. They thought we were making pretty sounds at
them, but it didn't have any meaning, couldn't have. After all, we weren't
talking."
"Are you sure?" Spock asked cautiously-
"It has to be. Damn it! I understand that languge, and every bit of logic
and intelligence tells me they ought to be responding. So why aren't they?,
Simple. We weren't using the right medium. Besides, we've got empirical
proof."
"Oh?" Spock raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Maslin grabbed Uhura, and yanked her over to face the Vulcan. "Her! They
responded to Uhura's singing. They don't understand the words since it's
another language, but they recognized it as communication."
"Come on, Spock," McCoy urged, moving in to join the debate. "It's at least
worth a try."
"I was not hesitating because I doubted the efficacy of such an attempt,
Doctor,
but because I was trying to determine the most effective way to
make the attempt."
"Simple," Maslin said, walking Uhura over to the synthesizer. "Uhura sings
into the synthesizer. The machine translates her sounds and words into
Thygetian, and ... and well, we're home free."
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"Perhaps. But let us not forget that the Thygetians are also telepathic
creatures."
"Then we'll think real hard while she sings," Maslin said impatiently. "But
what ever we do, let's for God's sake get on with it.99
"Very well."
"I can't just sing cold like this," Uhura protested.
"I'll improvise," Maslin said, sliding onto the bench. "You follow. We've
done it often enough before."
"Words? How about some text? It's a little hard to just start babbling in
song about what's going on."
'qYuc. Bear with me for a moment." He ripped a sheet of composition paper
from the notebook that rested on the synthesizer, and began to scribble.
"How about some help?" he called to the rest of the party. "Any of you good
at jinglesr'
"Dear gods what a task," Kali said, joining him and Uhura on the bench.
"What shall we say?"
"We'll want to keep it simple since we'll just be speaking pidgen as far as
they're concerned."
"Start with the phenomenon," Spock said, moving in.
'Then my people," Kali offered.
"The battle," Ragsdale suggested, becoming exeited.
"And tfien the loss of the ships into the phenomenon," said McCoy, adding
his bit.
"And finally we'll ask them to return out people," Uhura concluded soberly.
"All of our people," Kali added with a challenging look to the humans.
"But they'll just start attacking us again," Ragsdale protested.
,,Not if my husband can get back to his ship and reassert control." She
paused and looked about at the alien faces. "I have friends and companions
on those ships. I would not have them all die because of a few evil men."
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The Tears of the Singers
"Very well," Spock said, seeing that Kali was adamant upon this point. "We
will ask for the return of all of the ships.,'
"Jesus, we may as well try explaining the ascent of man, the conquest of
space and the founding of the Federation," Maslin muttered sourly as he
stared down at his scribbled notes.
"What other choice do we have?" Kali reminded him quietly.
"Good point. Okay, let's get to it."
It took two hours, but at last they had something that basically scanned.
Maslin read it over several more times, made a few changes, and then pulled
a face.
"Yeats will no doubt spin in his grave, but maybe it will fly," the
composer said as Uhura twitched the paper from his hands, and moved away to
study the words in privacy.
"Fortunately this isn't an English comp class," McCoy said. "Besides it
might sound better in Thygetian."
'T doubt it. You know how horrible things usually sound when they're
translated."
"Mr. Maslin, at this time esthetics are not-our major concern."
"You're right, Spock, I'm sorry. I guess I'm just being sensitive." He gave
a self-deprecating little smile. "But you can't really blame me. This is
the first time that my music has ever been given quite such a premiere."
"Let's do it," Uhura said, stepping back to the group. Her face was tight
with Itrain.
"We'll use a simple ABA form," he said to her. "This will be the basic
theme." He turned to the instrument, and played a quick, agitated melody
that seemed to embody the desperation of their plight. "We'll then modulate
into minor for the central section, and then back to the major key when you
ask them for help."
"Play it one more time, please," Uhura said.
He obliged, and Uhura stood with her eyes half-closed, one
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The Tears of the Sh*ers
hand beating time on her thigh, and occasionally humming through a tricky or
difficult section. They finished, and Maslin gave her an inquiring look. She
nodded and, gripping the verses tightly in one hand, stepped to the side of
the synthesizer. He handed her a translator that was hooked to the memory
banks of the synthesizer. Her sounds would be routed through the computer,
translated into Thygetian, and sent on to the fistenmg cubs.
A hush fell over the assembled people as they waited for this final,
desperate test of their theory. The sun was just beginning to rise,
touching the peaks of the crystal cliffs with opalescent fire, and turning
the wind-tossed clouds into billowing masses of pink and amber.
Maslin improvised an introduction, Uhura drew in a deep preparatory breath,
and began to sing.
Hear oh Singers, gather near Heed and help us in our hour. For
danger threatens And death draws near.
There was a convulsive stir from the cubs, and they began an agitated
yelping that had little resemblance to their usual melodic murmurings.
Uhura faltered, then picked up the melody and went on.
In darkness, silent growing The rainbow colors dance and swirl All
it touches are lost to living. Sun is threatened, soon it dies.
She held out her hand, indicating the rising sun, and in the
following verses tried to describe the phenomenon and its
terrible power. She went on through the arrival of the
Enterprise and the Klingons, the battle that had lost all the
ships. By now the cubs were singing an agitated and complex
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The Tears of the Singers
counterpoint to her song that Spock was carefully recording on his
tricorder. She reached the end, and made her plea for help with Guy and Kali
joining their voices to hers.
Maslin, making one last desperate attempt for understanding, reached out in
some unexplainable fashion, and there was a moment of disorientation as he
felt his mind met and captured by the Uygetian cubs. Music seemed to be
hammering into his skull. He felt the world spirming about him, and pain
exploded behind his eyes, but he hung on because he understood. They were
somehow communicating.
"Peoplel You are peoplel" came a musical cry from a cub. Guy looked down to
find one of the brighter, more aggressive cubs reared up next to the
synthesizer with his front flippers resting on the bench.
Guy grabbed the translator out of Uhura's hands, ignoring her look of
shock, for he was too busy searching about for the proper sounds. He had
spent so much time with the Thygetian language that it was very familiar to
him, and he had a very strong understanding of the tongue. Nonetheless, it
was a very different matter to speak such a language, and he took his time,
not wanting to make an err-or at this critical juncture.
"Yes, we are people, " he sang while playing along with one hand on the
synthesizer. "And we have come to help you."
"But you are asking us for help, " the cub sang, puzzled.
"Yes, that is true, for we have lost our people to the spaceltime vortex.
But I tell you now that if our people do not return to find a solution to
this danger all
of us will die. The vortex will eat the sun, and Taygeta
will become a ball of ice. "
"How can the sun not be? It would take the power of a thousand - to remove
the sun. "
Guy puzzled over the unfamiliar sound, but he had no framework, so he gave
up on the missing word. "Nonetheless, it can be done. The vortex touches
physical objects that exist in this space and time, and sweeps them into
... otherwhere, " he finally said for lack of a better word. "I myself have
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this happen. The inner world that orbits next to the sun is 8one. " There
was a howl of dismay from the cubs, and Maslin realized that whatever the
Uygetians; might be they were definitely not primitives where astronomy was
concerned. They were obviously very familiar with their own solar system.
It took a long time, for there were moments when Guy simply couldn't
understand, or times when he produced some odd sound that left the cubs
totally bewildered. There was also the insatiable curiosity of the cubs
themselves. They kept changing the subject and wandering far afield as they
asked questions about the humans how they lived, where they had come fmm,
how they had gotten there. Guy could have screamed with frustration, but he
forced himself to be patient, knowing this was not the time for him to
display anything other than the most even of tempers. At last the cubs
seemed satisfied, and willing to return to the subject of the Enterprise.
"So what is it you wish us to do?" the spokesman asked.
"Do what you do with thefish, and the deserts, and the rain. And bring back
our ships."
"Show me what they look like.
Guy gaped at the cub, and then looked desperately at Spock. He had been
virtually oblivious to the other members of the landing party during his
exchange with the cubs, and fortunately they hadn't interferred with him,
but now he needed help. He struggled to free himself from the grip of the
singers, and they reluctantly let go. When the release came he almost
collapsed onto the keyhoard. Only Uhura's hands on his shoulders kept him
from failing.
"They need to know what the ships look like," he gasped, his body shaking
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