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Nocturnes: The Third Day, Called Tuesday, Of Some Time Frame
The last words of the ship's crew, taken bound
to execution, and their whole ship towed
(the auto pilot found guilty as well)
beyond the stellar rim:
of course we knew
we spent too much of precious mission time
in leisurely orbits around the small
blue planet, the third outward from the star---
a young and yellow specimen, now caught
on the wrong side of our quarantine lines.
The species dominant upon that world
were none too smart; nerither advanced were they
in science or technology. Their skills
at languages were almost upside down---
splitting into crude dialects, rather
than thriving toward, evolving into, one
ongoing conversation among all.
They had invented certain small machines
to fly them (grounded mammals that they are)
to varied places (purposes unknown)
or to drop bombs upon each others' vast
complexities of nests or feeding grounds.
They had learned how to split their atoms. but
spent more time splitting crude political
slogans in split infinitives. We learned
some of their so-called dates and dates---those that
held some significance for them. Just one
factor compelled our interest far beyond
the mission's generous parameters:
the sounds they organized into what they
called music. which they constantly broadcast
on some few, and unstable, carrier
waves---mostly when the darkness (after their
star had set) filled their sky; a time they spent,
repeatedly in their leisure pursuits
(especially their young ones breeding hard
as if they could not live without breeding).
The Quackman's Duck was one of those voices
that spoke just before and after the music---
most of the words meant nothing to us, but
that name and voice transmitted with great power,
across the continent we hovered over in
a parallel orbit. We had deployed
drones, also, together the music to
our record banks. The clearest was, of course,
the Quackman's Duck, and when all seven drones
also received it, the whole sound became
like to a wall of sound, surrounding us,
so that all other functions were postponed:
the ship was placed on autopilot as
we listened to this beauty we could not
explain nor understand, and wondered if
all music of all other worlds could be
as wondrous and fulfilling as this was.
We listened to what we knew not, nor how
to make it for our own; but we filled all
the record banks leftover after the
initial survey data had been stored.
We have confessed that our attention was
often distracted, although pleasantly
(and for this, your court martial's verdict is
quite uncontestable . . . without appeal . . .
although somewhat harsh in its penalty).
Other broadcasts that we could understand,
vaguely, seemed to imply that music was
a call to mating---to their able young.
The limited intelligences on
this planet sometimes caught glimpses of the
deployed drones, but never our ship---its size
would have brought them more terror than they thought
could enter their narrow, primitive minds.
But we, too, realized regretfully
that other planets outside this system
awaited survey. The whole crew agreed
to one last hover over that great mass
of land between its two oceans---to hear
once more (and not merely from replay of
stored records those strange and inviting tones
gathered and broadcast by the Quackman's Duck.
We listened, noting by their calendar
(which really was inadequate due to
their limited astronomy) the Third
Day of another time-frame had began;
they called it Tuesday (meaning yet unknown).
We knew that would be our last parallel
orbit before we called the drones back in
and sheared off toward the planet's only moon.
The darkness that followed the star-set was
full of precipitation---flakes not drops.
From far beneath our vantage, we noticed
one of their flight machines---incredibly
small, dimly lit, and moving at high speed
(or what our limited experience
suggested must have been high speed for them)---
approaching the drone nearest to our ship.
Of course, the drone was not in danger of
collision or damage, for the force field
surrounding it could simply swat away
intruders---natural or alien.
The drone deflected the small flight machine---
the tiny lights of which was all it had
of visibility. Our instruments
lost all contact with it in that darkness,
until a single streak of flame flashed and
vanished. Presumably that meant a crash.
Here ended the transmission followed by
the detonation to destroy the ship
and all aboard it . . . sentence carried out.
Starward
