The Vanished Birds

by Simon Jimenez

  It was a twenty-minute drive from the tower to the compound. When they crested the last dune, they could see the tiered landing pads, the Debby docked on the topmost pad like a bee on a petal.

  After he parked the truck in the lot he showed the captain to the storage building, where the promised rations waited. He pointed out the boxes that were still good, the ones not chewed through by the rat-things. The captain fetched the strongest of her crew, the big woman he had met the night before, along with a loader, and moved the boxes into the elevator, and from there, the berth of her ship. When the last of the boxes had been delivered, he thought their business was done, was at once dreading and looking forward to the solitude again, exhausted as he was by the new, but the captain said they wouldn’t be leaving till the morning if that was all right with him, and then asked if he would like to join them for dinner.

  It had been a long time since he had received such an invitation. There was once a day when those things were taken for granted. No longer. He savored the moment as she waited for his answer. “Is it all right if she comes too?” he asked, gesturing to the mastiff while the dog relieved herself in the sand.

  The mastiff watched Gorlen shave before the meal, dragging the blades upriver, tapping the hairs out into the sink. He was an irregular shaver, there was little reason to clean up these days, and his hand was clumsy; he made a few undesirable nicks on his chin, which he pressed with a towel to stanch the bleeding. He opened the locker, rummaging through his clothes. He sighed when he realized the only presentable outfit was the last one he wanted to wear. He flattened the jacket over his desk, and for ten minutes set to work removing the winged insignia of Umbai from its breast with one of the blades from his razor. He tossed his shame in the garbage and pulled up the pants he hadn’t worn in years. They were two sizes too loose. A belt carried it the rest of the way. He asked the mastiff how he looked. She stared at him, her expression an incurious one, as though she had seen all of this happen in some prophetic dream and was now playing her humble role as dispassionate observer. “I know,” he said, rubbing his jaw as he looked into the mirror, the cuts made from the dulled blade. “I’m not fooling anyone.”

  At the appointed time he and the mastiff rode the elevator up to the Debby’s pad. The young man was outside with two others—the engineer and the broad-shouldered woman. They were hosing down the ship’s radiation masts, chatting as the black gunk of Pocket Space pooled at their feet. He wondered if he had come too early, but when the young man saw him, he waved, and said, “The food is almost ready. We have to finish this, but you can go inside if you like.” They resumed chatting while he headed up the ramp, his hands wrestling with each other as he walked through the vaulted cargo bay, and up the stairs into the main causeway, nervous for the coming meal.

  Voices echoed from the lit doorway down the corridor. He touched his armpit. He was sweating. He could barely remember “hello.” To calm himself, he activated his memory drive again. Played out the memory-record of the Salt Flat Heights concert.

  Percussive drums coronated his march forward, the strength the music lent him fleeing as soon as he stepped into the light of the common room.

  He stood in the doorway, his posture awkward. The captain was on the sofa, speaking to a bald man whose name he could not remember. In the kitchen that abutted the common room a severe-looking woman was setting plates on a table while a stocky, bearded man was at work at the stoves, throwing spices into the fire like a crazed alchemist. It was the bald man who noticed him first.

  “Our guest!” he cried. Everyone turned. Gorlen gave them a small wave. The bald man stood up and gestured for him to enter. “Please, come in, sit, be at home. Yes, any seat you like. Royvan is putting the finishing touches on the meal. It should be a few more minutes. And my God, I haven’t seen a dog in, well, I don’t remember, a very long time. A mastiff, if memory serves. Is it all right if I—?”

  “She doesn’t like to be touched,” Gorlen said.

  “Sartoris,” the captain said, embarrassed. “Give them air.”

  “Of course.” Sartoris blushed. “My apologies. It’s just that it’s been a while since we have had guests and I— Oh, Vaila, no! The napkins are a mess!” The severe woman setting the table gave Sartoris a death glare. As they argued over proper utensil order, the captain sat beside Gorlen on the sofa.

  “He was a social organizer in another life,” she explained. “He’s been needing an outlet for a while now. Apologies if you find him intense.”

  “It’s fine,” he said.

  The mastiff sniffed at a dropped piece of vat meat beneath the counter.

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She’s not mine. Her owner left her here, like the others.”

  He felt a small shiver when he saw how the captain looked at him—the intensity of it. “This place,” she said. “What happened to it?”

  He told her the thing between truth and lie. “Same as what happened to a hundred other worlds. An Allied company wanted to acquire it. This system is at a crossroads between five different currents. A good foothold on the trade routes. So the company made an offer. And the people refused.”

  The captain nodded. She knew how the story went, it seemed. But he made it explicit anyway; maybe for his own peace of mind, he wasn’t sure. He winced and turned off the music-memory in his head, and he told her what happened next. “When they refused the offer, the company went the long way around. Ariadne lived on trade, the food that was brought in from offworld, the tools for repair. So the company took away trade. They diverted the trade route that ran through here. Flooded the market with cheap duplicate works ‘inspired’ by the original creations. Started rumors of crime and infestation. Bribed big-name traders to take their business elsewhere. Slowed things down to a trickle over twenty years while one of their representatives whispered in the ears of Ariadne’s governing body. Told them it wasn’t worth the holdout. And then they left, along with everyone else.”

  “Food’s ready,” the bearded man called out.

  “Thanks, Roy,” the captain said. “Can you go get the others?” As the cook left the room, the captain glanced at him. “Why did you stay?”

  Gorlen shrugged.

  “Someone had to take care of the dogs.”

  She smiled.

  The three crew members he’d seen outside now entered, with hands sticky and stenched by the mast work; Sartoris told them they had to clean up in the lav before they’d be allowed to join the others at the table. The former party architect directed Gorlen to a seat between the broad-shouldered woman and the engineer—he wished he was better with names—but before the eating could begin, Sartoris stopped the eager hands. “Etiquette, people! The guest must be served first.” Gorlen wanted to tell him that wasn’t necessary, but he couldn’t find the words, managing a quiet thank-you as the young man ladled him the stir-fry. “If I may, Nia,” Sartoris said, standing up with a raised glass, “I wish to make a toast.”

  The table groaned.

  “Try to keep it under a minute this time,” the captain said.

  Sartoris’s soliloquy on the merits of good food and greater company was longer than a minute, closer to five. Gorlen thought of making a joke about this to win over the table, but once the toast was done the eating began and his moment had passed. He used to be good at this. Could command a soiree of Pelican nobility with a king’s confidence and a prince’s charm. But that was another man.

  A younger one.

  The one he loved, and hated.

  There wasn’t a lot of food; enough to comfortably serve four at an Allied dinner party. He was reintroduced to everyone while they ate their meager offerings, but the names left his mind as soon as he heard them. He was in a daze as they all spoke to one another in a crackly manner, chuckles, snaps, laughs, stop-eating-off-my-plate, at ease in the way makeshift
families are. It was so hot in this room. He could smell his own body odor. The broad-shouldered woman beside him seemed unaware of the smell, but he worried anyway. To calm himself, he flicked on the music-memory of a time he and a date had gone to see the performance of Take Me Down, out in the theater dune. Could feel the softness of her hand in his as he drank the greywine that was offered him at this table, the cup refilled by Sartoris every time he put it back down. “Food portions are small, yes, but we bought crates of these bottles at the last station,” Sartoris said. “Fire sale. We had to take advantage. Please, drink as much as you like.” He did, though the drink didn’t help him keep track of the multiple conversations that were happening at once. “Can we get a refill?” the captain asked, holding out her cup. “It wasn’t like I had any choice,” the bearded cook said to the broad-shouldered woman, “so I said to them, look, the arm must come off.” Beside them, the young man was carefully ladling out portions of vegetables onto everyone’s plate until the captain told him to stop serving and start eating, for God’s sake. Gorlen’s date in his music-memory smiled at him as the next song started, whispering that this was the good one as the ship conversation went on without him. “We need more rice.” “I got it,” the severe woman said. “Where’s my fork?” “Then the guy looks at me with the most serious expression on his face, and he says, that’s fine, Doctor, you can take the arm, but can you leave the fingers?” The broad-shouldered woman boomed with laughter. “It’s Em’s issue, not mine,” the severe woman said to the captain, “the suspension is supposed to wear out after so many landings. It’s the engineer who’s supposed to do something about it.” “I sense being turned into a scapegoat.” “Tell me that’s not true, he really said that?” “Who has the bottle?” “Are you from here originally?”

  It took a moment for Gorlen to realize that Sartoris was asking him a question through the noise. He quit the music-memory, the only trace of it the tickle on his earlobe, where his date had begun to nibble.

  “No,” he said, his face flush. “I was born on Falstaff.”

  “A City Planet?” The bald man turned this fact over in his head. “You’ve come a long way.”

  “I did.” He could tell that Sartoris was socially trained, the way the man looked at him like he was the most interesting person here. Still, even after recognizing the technique, he liked how it made him feel. He would’ve told him anything. Almost anything. “I heard the stories about this place. So I came. And I stayed.”

  “And you said you aren’t a musician?”

  “No. But I”—he caught himself, voice trailing off—“just a fan. Used to go out to town and listen to the concerts, back when there were concerts.” And between the concerts, enacting the company plan that would stop the concerts from happening.

  “That must’ve been nice.”

  “It was.” He smiled, pushed his glass out, and let Sartoris refill it. He co-opted the story of someone he used to know, and made it sound like his own. “I was an operator here in the landing base. Had long shifts, ships coming and going, illegal dockers, fussed-up reservations, they always needed us on call. Took a lot to keep going. But it was worth it when I’d hear them play.”

  It was a subtle shift in energy. He didn’t notice the others had gone quiet until he really got to talking. Momentum carried him the rest of the way, along with the food, and the wine.

  He told them how the town used to be, before the dogs ran the place. Told them that there was no music so beautiful than what you would hear each morning from your bedroom window. There was an old saying, he said, of how the ear hears but the heart listens, and those were the days his heart was sated. He told them of the hours of nodding off in his operator’s seat and the weekends he spent in town in the company of strangers as they applauded the new sounds onstage. He told them about the drinking. How he found himself in that audience, a part of him he didn’t know was there until he left Allied Space.

  He used to dream of playing with the bands onstage, but he’d missed his chance now that the musicians were all gone.

  Gone, but not quite.

  He tapped the scar behind his ear. “Thousands of memory records on my drive. Performances I’ve captured. Name a song. It’s probably in here.”

  They played a game of music. Someone at the table would call out the name of an old treasured song, or a song they believed too obscure to know, and he would search his database with a clenched fist and toe twitch until, almost every time, he found it, for this was once the city of musicians, and they were many, and there was not a day that went by on Ariadne when he was not in the audience, listening to them. And he would translate these memories through his humming of the tune, singing for them the words he could catch, and would take great pleasure in the crew’s nostalgic delight and surprise. He would know what it was like to be on that stage.

  “I bet I know a song you don’t have,” the captain said.

  “Try me,” he said with a challenger’s smile.

  The crew hollered.

  “A song from a Resource World,” she said. “Umbai-V. The farmers would sing it at the end of the day. Think it was called the song of homecoming.”

  He shut his eyes and searched.

  Nia crossed her arms.

  “I think you stumped him,” Royvan said.

  But Gorlen smiled.

  “No. I have it.”

  He was in one of the smaller venues. Nayla’s Tent. A hollowed-out fruit was in his right hand, filled with weak, sugary drink. The man to his left had a whistle in his nose that was very distracting. And on the narrow stage was a woman in a gold-shimmer suit, who claimed the next song was one passed down to her by her mother, and from her mother, and so on. The translation was her own. Gorlen winced as he remembered how impatient his younger self was—the dragged-out sigh he let loose at this long-winded performer. Get to the song. She did, in time. And as she sang, Gorlen, from this place in his past, echoed out her words in the Debby’s kitchen.

  “The fields are empty of their fruit

  My basket heavy with their seed.

  I walk the road back to our home

  This song my light by which I lead.

  Take my day, but give me the night,

  Take my day, but give me the night.

  Feed the hearth and pour the brew,

  A drink for me, a drink for you.

  The road is long and does not end

  The rocks below now bruise my feet.

  But up the hills I march tonight

  For by the gates you wait for me.

  So take my day, but give me the night,

  Take my day, but give me the night.

  Feed the hearth and pour the brew,

  For I am coming home to you

  I am coming home to you.”

  It was a lackluster translation. Gorlen’s younger self cringed at the hokey rhythm and childish rhymes, while his older, present self had a more generous view of the lyrics’ earnest qualities; opinions that were, in the end, irrelevant, for the crew was so drunk they would’ve applauded if he pissed on the floor. They gave him a standing ovation, led by Sartoris, not only for winning this impromptu game but for the performance, which, while strewn with false notes and nervous warbles, was sung with great emotion. Only two remained seated; the captain and her boy. Nia clapped without energy, the song having put her in a melancholic mood, as she remembered the night she spent with her head on Kaeda’s chest, sweet and long gone, and thought how unlikely it was that she would ever have a night like that again.

  As for Ahro, what he felt now defied his own explanation. He was too startled by these sensations to have a coherent thought or theory; could only let the feeling envelop him, as from his chest an invisible line tugged at him—upward, breathlessly, to the sky that swirled like an oil painting of many colors, as the sleeping thing within now fluttered its e
yes.

  * * *

  —

  Not long after the performance, the meal was finished and the last cup emptied, and it was time to say good night. At the entrance of the cargo bay, Gorlen thanked them all for the wonderful dinner and stumbled his way back to the landing pad’s descending elevators, believing he would treasure this memory till his last day, only to curse himself after he returned to his room and realized he had recorded none of it for later recollection.

  It was just as well. The memory drive was old, and he had used it cavalierly that night. He sat on the frayed sofa, clutching his head, massaging away the throbbing ache as the drive did a brief short circuit and threw clipped music-memories at him like a series of wrathful slaps. The mastiff watched him from the dark of the other room while his face twisted into a grimaced smile. Due punishment, he thought, for using the ghosts of the world he’d ruined as a cheap parlor trick.

  Tomorrow, and the next day, he would continue to play guardian to the abandoned dogs, and the transmission tower, until the day Umbai would call and let him know the construction fleet was on its way. He would not be the last human on this satellite, but he would be the last to remember the concerts. He would drive to and from the town, and while away the years listening to his memories. And for a time, he would find peace, and reconcile the way his life had turned out, until the day would come when he approached the gates and there was no dog left to bark.

  He saw all of this before him as he fell asleep that night.

  And still, he smiled.

  * * *

  —

  Once he was gone, the crew set about cleaning the table, talking about other matters, the sole reminder of Gorlen’s presence Royvan’s impromptu review of the performance, which he said wasn’t bad for a beginner, but that the man had a long way to go if he had any hope of drawing people back to this world by music alone—a review Sonja rolled her eyes at before knocking him affectionately on the elbow. Soon it was only Ahro who still thought of the man and the song, his brow furrowed as he remembered his physical reaction to the music—the dance of nerves on top of his head, the wind-rush of a sudden opening in the air.