MUSIC OF THE SPHERES
A short story of 1700 words
© David Lowe, March 1992
Zimmo and Kracovic stood on a small island of hard earth in a sea of glowing, bubbling mud.
Both men were bald, and wore sunglasses hooked over large ears. Their clothes changed style and colour automatically as the temperature went up and down and purple clouds raced across the sky.
Patiently, the men listened.
It was a typical afternoon on the planet Spheri 1, late in the 21st century.
Bubbles plopped up through the mud.
'I don't believe it,' said Kracovic at last. 'They've done us over again, the bastards.' He threw his cigarette end into the mud with a hiss and put a new one between his lips. It lit itself automatically.
Zimmo frowned at the mud stretching to the horizon in all directions. 'This place has got about as much auditory investment value as a flush toilet,' he declared. 'Let's get the fuck out of here.'
The visitors with the electronic clothes went by many names. Some called them Sound Scouts; others, Acoustic Explorers. Zimmo and Kracovic liked to think of themselves as Aural Pioneers. In a world bored with old-fashioned sounds and rhythms, alien audio was big business, and Zimmo and Kracovic were the best in the trade. They travelled using Instantaneous Psycho-Kinetic Transport (IKPT), and spent most of their time hot on the heels of mining exploration companies and colony surveyors. Unfortunately the universe had been something of a disappointment so far, musically speaking, and their employers, SQUAREVIBES, were privately considering stopping the expensive expeditions altogether if Zimmo and Kracovic didn't find something soon. The pair had only one assistant, a deaf boy called Squib, who had been hired for his inability to leak details of their discoveries.
On the other side of the island, Squib was teaching himself to juggle. The boy had albino skin and long fingers. His large eyes were colourless. Instead of using balls, he juggled old recorded music chips that Zimmo had thrown away. Three, four, five chips arced through the air, glinting. Squib smiled happily. Suddenly the wind gusted and the boy lost his concentration. The chips fell. All but one he caught. The last dropped into the bubbling mud at his feet.
'Shit!' Squib muttered under his breath. He considered reaching in after the chip, but then thought better of it. Just then, something strange happened. A space cleared in the bubbling mud. The surface became smooth. Shapes appeared. In shock, Squib realised the shapes were letters, words.
'HEY BABY BABY BABY BABE,' said the letters in the mud. Then they faded and disappeared. The mud could talk! Excited, Squib threw in another chip. Again the mud cleared and filled itself with letters.
'WOP BAM BA LOO WOP BA LOP BAM BOO.' Squib was dumbfounded. Maybe the mud was hungry? The next two chips produced illegible results. In went the last one. 'Rolling Stones' was written on the fading label.
'IT'S ONLY ROCK AND ROLL BUT I LIKE IT LIKE IT YES I DO,' said the mud, before returning to normal. What could it mean?
SQUAREVIBES had sent Zimmo and Kracovic to Spheri 1 after an expensive tip-off from an industrial spy working inside SMRK Corp, Earth's biggest inter-galactic mineral exploration company. According to the stolen intelligence, Spheri 1 orbited - and was orbited by - another planet of equal size, Spheri 2. It seemed the mining people had not been overly impressed with the twin planets:
Spheri 1: Primarily organic composition... zero
mineral potential... 85% terrestrial atmosphere...
Spheri 2: Significant mercury deposits in gaseous
form... extremely hostile environment... surface
temp. 400 degrees... further exploration
economically untenable at this stage...
It was the final part that SQUAREVIBES had paid so much to see:
Extremely unusual aural phenomena present...
apparently caused by... atmospheric interaction of
unstable twin planetary system...
'Extremely unusual my arse,' scoffed Zimmo, walking back towards the large black cube that had brought them to the planet.
Kracovic followed. 'Maybe Weezil wants flatulent mud?'
'Get real Kracovic. Who do you think's gonna pay to have that in their living rooms?'
Suddenly Squib ran up to them. 'The mud spoke!' he said in a high voice, waving his arms.
'What do you mean it 'spoke',' said Zimmo, staring at the boy suspiciously. 'Thought you were s'posed to be deaf you little bastard.'
The boy read his lips. 'It ate the chips,' he said.
'It what?!'
'I threw them in the mud,' Squib explained.
'Not my Kaarma Zootra collection?' growled Zimmo, grabbing him by the collar.
'No, no,' protested the boy, 'Just the old ones you didn't want anymore.'
Suddenly one wall of the black cube filled with an image of a man in a suit, sitting at a desk and draped with naked women. Zimmo dropped the boy to the ground with a thud. The two bald men stood to attention. Their clothes changed simultaneously to matching business suits with neat creases.
'Where the hell have you two been?' shouted the young-looking man in an old voice, plastic surgery stretching.
'Er... here, Mr Weezil,' answered Zimmo.
'And?'
'It's pretty quiet sir,' said Kracovic. 'No unusual aural phenonema to speak of.'
'There's a lot of mud,' volunteered Zimmo. Kracovic kicked him on the shin.
36,000 light years away, Weezil's mouth turned down even further at the corners. He thumped one fist on the desk and opened his mouth to speak. Suddenly a weird silvery light filled the air. Weezil's image on the cube flickered before dissolving to buzzing static.
Zimmo and Kracovic turned to see what was happening. The horizon was blinding white. Squib shielded his eyes. All around them mud bubbled fiercely. Out of the brown sea floated a glowing orb.
'Spheri 2,' whispered Kracovic. Zimmo nodded, mouth agape.
Like a hugely pregnant moon, the twin planet rose and hung in the sky above them. Its surface seemed close enough to touch. The planet's skin was of storms, raging and wheeling in fury. Grey clouds like dinosaurs bubbled and chased one other. Flares of molten silver streaked out from the surface like wraiths before falling back into bubbling seas of mercury.
'Holy shit,' said Zimmo. At his feet the boy gulped, eyes wide.
Suddenly the bald men became conscious of music. A symphony for gods and goddesses. Zimmo and Kracovic's ears tingled with delight. Eyes closed involuntarily. Knees became weak. Without fear, the men went limp and almost fell. The music held them up. It was like swimming in a bath of honey. Impossible, sparkling melodies danced with each and every cell of their bodies. There were tantalising harmonies of stars and atoms. Chords like rainbows. It was an aural fantasy, an orgasm set to music.
For an eternity the two men listened, enchanted.
At last the final echoes faded away. They opened their eyes. Spheri 2 was sinking over the horizon. Zimmo and Kracovic grinned and laughed joyously while Squib looked from one to the other, confused. He had heard nothing. The two men stepped through the wall of the cube, dragging their assistant after them. Zimmo pressed buttons. Three seconds later, the cube materialised in SQUAREVIBES' head office on Earth.
'What the hell happened up there?' demanded Weezil.
Zimmo and Kracovic grinned at each other again. Kracovic spoke slowly. 'Sir, we have just made a discovery that will make you the richest man in the Milky Way.'
While the men explained, Squib cleaned the mud out of the spacecraft.
Three hours later, its destination top secret, the cube was on its way back to Spheri 1 for the next orbit of the twin planet, loaded to the gills with the latest in recording technology. Back on Earth, Weezil was organising the biggest press conference in the history of the music business.
When they arrived at the muddy island, Zimmo checked astronomical calendars through the computer while Kracovic told Squib where to lay out the heavy recording equipment. Microphones were pointed in every imaginable direction. Sonic imaging mixing desks were fired up. Digital links established. Duplicate, triplicate and quadruplicate recording chips were cued. At last all was in readiness. Spheri 1 was wired for sound.
At the appointed hour, the twin planet nudged over the horizon in a familiar blaze of white. Mud bubbled as the planet rose into the sky. When it was directly overhead, the extraordinary sounds began once more. Zimmo and Kracovic pressed buttons and fiddled with dials.
'It's gonna be fucking big,' whispered Zimmo.
'I reckon,' said Kracovic in awe. 'Maybe even bigger than Kaarma Zootra.'
Right on schedule, Spheri 2 dipped below the horizon. Squib packed the gear away while Zimmo and Kracovic looked at their watches anxiously. They were late for their press conference.
A SQUAREVIBES banner hung over the podium. Weezil had already made his big introduction, and the reporters were getting bored, shuffling their feet. Weezil made jokes about the unreliability of psychic transport while he mopped his brow. People were beginning to leave.
Suddenly the cube materialised on the podium. Lights were switched on. Cameras focused. Microphones aimed. Zimmo stepped through the wall of the cube. His suit changed into a glittering, spangled showman's outfit. Journalists tittered. Kracovic and a mud-stained Squib followed and stood to one side. Quiet fell as Zimmo took a music chip from his pocket and handed it to Weezil, who held it high above his head triumphantly before inserting it into a waiting deck. 'This, ladies and gentlemen, will revolutionise the way this planet thinks about music.' He nodded to a technician, who pressed a button. Thirty-two speakers dotted around the room hissed in anticipation. A live worldwide TV audience of two billion people waited.
From the speakers came a sound of bubbling mud. Reporters raised their eyebrows. Weezil glared at Zimmo. 'What the fuck's happening?' muttered Zimmo to Kracovic.
Technicians fiddled with the signal, then shrugged their shoulders helplessly. Around the world, people began to laugh. Kracovic looked at Zimmo. Zimmo looked at Kracovic. One backup chip after another was tried. It was exactly the same. Bubbling mud. Weezil quaked in fury. Desperately, he tried to stop his face from disintegrating completely under the strain.
Squib did not hear the laughter and the jeers. He was transfixed. If anyone had asked him what was happening, he would not have been able to describe it. He was hearing for the first time in his life, hearing exactly what Zimmo and Kracovic had heard 36,000 light years away. The music of the spheres. All around the world deaf people listened to their TV sets in amazement. Quietly, Squib picked up one of the discarded backup chips and stole away.© David Lowe, March 1992