She touched a boss on the side of her chair and white light hazed around them. “I think we’re close enough to Earth to get some of the high-power tri-dis,” she said, “although we can’t expect perfect reception.”
Blurrily, a show formed—a variety show. At first it seemed the same sort of thing that he remembered dimly, more interesting now because it had almost the character of novelty. Then an ornate young man appeared and it took deeper significance. He was carrying a musical instrument—refined, machined, carefully pitched. He played music on the ulerin while a trio sang insipid Terrestrial words. “Love Is a Guiding Star” they called it, but that didn’t matter. It was one of the tunes Clarey had taped.
She touched another boss. The blur reformed to a symphony orchestra, playing as background music to a soloist with another ulerin. “That’s your First Ulerin Concerto,” she said. “There are three more.”
Another program was beginning, an account of the tribulations of an unfortunate Plutonian family. It faded in to the strains of ulerin music, to a tune of Clarey’s. If they could have endured it to the end, she told him, it would have faded out the same way. “Every time they play it,” she said, “somewhere on Earth a cash register rings for you. And this one’s a daily program.”
He watched transfixed and transfigured as program after program featured his music, his ulerin.
“Not just on Earth,” Han said, “but on all the civilized planets, even in a few of the more sophisticated primitive ones. You’re a famous man, Clarey. Earth is waiting for you, literally and figuratively. There’ll be ulerin orchestras to greet you at the field; we sent a relay ahead to let them know you were coming.”
But his mind was slowly alerting itself. “And where am I supposed to be coming from, then, since they’re never to hear about Damorlan?”
“They’ve been told that you retired to a lonely asteroid to work—to perfect your art and its instrument.”
Of course they couldn’t divulge the truth about Damorlan. “It seems a little unfair, though,” he said.
“Why unfair? After all, Clarey, the music is yours. You took Damorlan’s melodies and made them into music. You took their ulerin and made it into a musical instrument. They’re all yours, every note and bladder of them.”
She reached over and put out a hand to him. “And I’m yours, too, Clarey, if you want me,” she breathed. There was obviously no doubt in her mind that he did want her. And in his, too. One didn’t reject the Secretary of Space.
He took the chilly hand in his. The skin was odd in texture. I’m imagining things, he thought. It’s a long time since I touched a human female’s hand.
“I must be a very important Musician,” he said aloud.
She nodded, not pretending to misunderstand. “Yes, important enough to rate the original and not a reasonable facsimile. You’re a lucky man, Clarey.” And then she smiled up at him. “I can be warm and tender, I assure you.”
It took him a moment to realize what she meant. For a moment he had that pang again. She would never be the same as Embelsira, but a man needed change to develop.
He was still troubled, though. “I want to do something. Even an empty gesture’s better than none at all. The last few months, I started putting together a longer thing; I guess it could be a symphony. When I finish it, I’d like to call it the ‘Damorlant Symphony.’“
“Why not?” she said. He thought she was humoring him, but she added, “They’ll think you just picked the name from an astrogation chart.”
In a final burst of irony he dedicated the “Damorlant Symphony” to the human race, but, as usual, he was misunderstood. In fact, one of the music critics—all of whom were enthusiastic over the new work—wrote, “At last we have a great musician who is also a great humanist.”
Eventually Clarey forgot his original intent and came to believe it himself.
Meeting of the Minds, by Robert Sheckley
PART ONE
The Quedak lay on a small hilltop and watched a slender jet of light descend through the sky. The feather-tailed jet was golden, and brighter than the sun. Poised above it was a glistening metallic object, fabricated rather than natural, hauntingly familiar. The Quedak tried to think what it was.
He couldn’t remember. His memories had atrophied with his functions, leaving only scattered fragments of images. He searched among them now, leafing through his brief scraps of ruined cities, dying populations, a blue-water-filled canal, two moons, a spaceship....
That was it. The descending object was a spaceship. There had been many of them during the great days of the Quedak.
Those great days were over, buried forever beneath the powdery sands. Only the Quedak remained. He had life and he had a mission to perform. The driving urgency of his mission remained, even after memory and function had failed.
As the Quedak watched, the spaceship dipped lower. It wobbled and sidejets kicked out to straighten it. With a gentle explosion of dust, the spaceship settled tail first on the arid plain.
And the Quedak, driven by the imperative Quedak mission, dragged itself painfully down from the little hilltop. Every movement was an agony. If he were a selfish creature, the Quedak would have died. But he was not selfish. Quedaks owed a duty to the universe; and that spaceship, after all the blank years, was a link to other worlds, to planets where the Quedak could live again and give his services to the native fauna.
He crawled, a centimeter at a time, and wondered whether he had the strength to reach the alien spaceship before it left this dusty, dead planet.
Captain Jensen of the spaceship Southern Cross was bored sick with Mars. He and his men had been here for ten days. They had found no important archeological specimens, no tantalizing hints of ancient cities such as the Polaris expedition had discovered at the South Pole. Here there was nothing but sand, a few weary shrubs, and a rolling hill or two. Their biggest find so far had been three pottery shards.
Jensen readjusted his oxygen booster. Over the rise of a hill he saw his two men returning.
“Anything interesting?” he asked.
“Just this,” said engineer Vayne, holding up an inch of corroded blade without a handle.
“Better than nothing,” Jensen said. “How about you, Wilks?”
The navigator shrugged his shoulders. “Just photographs of the landscape.”
“OK,” Jensen said. “Dump everything into the sterilizer and let’s get going.”
Wilks looked mournful. “Captain, one quick sweep to the north might turn up something really—”
“Not a chance,” Jensen said. “Fuel, food, water, everything was calculated for a ten-day stay. That’s three days longer than Polaris had. We’re taking off this evening.”
The men nodded. They had no reason to complain. As the second to land on Mars, they were sure of a small but respectable footnote in the history books. They put their equipment through the sterilizer vent, sealed it, and climbed the ladder to the lock. Once they were inside, Vayne closed and dogged the hatch, and started to open the inside pressure door.
“Hold it!” Jensen called out.
“What’s the matter?”
“I thought I saw something on your boot,” Jensen said. “Something like a big bug.”
Vayne quickly ran his hands down the sides of his boots. The two men circled him, examining his clothing.
“Shut