Chapter Four:

Jam

"I've already told you everything I can think of," I said politely.

"Every lie you can think of, you mean!" This was true. For the last three hours my captors had grilled me on almost every aspect of my existence, after injecting me with a translation serum that allowed me to understand their frenetic speech, and, so they claimed, any other intelligible language. During the interrogation I had indeed been less than cooperative. I had told them no less than 7 completely different answers to each question they repeatedly asked, for the simple reason that I thought it would be best to keep them as confused as possible, since they didn't seem to have a specific idea of what they wanted to find out. Perhaps it was just standard procedure to interrogate everyone they captured and accuse them of lying, even before the first question. For the ninth or tenth time I wondered what was happening to Gloriana and Captain Fuckjerk. I had been the first to be taken from our cell once we arrived at the pirates' planet. Whatever the case, I wasn't going to make things easy for them, especially since their so called "torture" was having absolutely no effect, as far as I could tell. In fact, it felt kind of nice.

My tormentor spoke up. "Now, I will ask you again, you slime, who are you and what were you doing on the Jeebie starship Gumbofucktitty?"

"Well, all right, I guess I better tell you the real story," I drawled. Figuring that telling the truth now to them would be indistinguishable from the seven other stories I had told, I said, "My name is Zacharry Fixx. I'm a human from the planet Earth, about, well, I'm not sure how to tell you where it is but it couldn't have been more than a few thousand light years from where you captured us." The interrogator and his assistant began to tie their eyes again. "Anyway, I was on the ship on my way to Vega 7 because I had heard they really respect artists in that part of the galaxy and I'm a musician."

Suddenly the Kirullians were jumping up and down, their eyestalks unwinding to stare down at me and their tentacles waving around so fast that they made whirring noises in the air. "WHAT!!!" said the interrogator, seeming to be genuinely indignant now, "did you say you are a musician!!?!"

"Well, yes."

Twelve feet stomped and rattled as the two huge aliens hopped and leaped menacingly around the tiny room, coming near to landing on me several times. Finally they stopped and faced me again. "You dare to make such a claim? That you, a- whatever you are- are a musician?!! You, a musician?!!?"

It was quite surprising, and rather horrifying. Were they going to exterminate me after I'd finally told the truth about myself? What was going on? I managed to murmur in reply, "yes, well, there's a demo tape in my jacket, if you haven't destroyed it." They had removed my clothes for the interrogation.

The Kirullians were settled down some, but I could tell they were still seething, their whole 800 pound bodies shivering with fury, or something. Finally the interrogator said, slowly and quietly, but with an eerie firmness in his voice, "You will prove your claim... human... or pay for your arrogance." He waved a tentacle and his assistant shuffled out of the room.

A moment later he was back, carrying what looked like a strange musical instrument. The interrogator pressed a button on a control panel and the electrostraps loosened, freeing me from the bench. I sat up and they immediately handed me the instrument.

"Play, and play well, or suffer the full penalty!"

I considered asking what this penalty was and what it would be for, but I knew it would be no use reasoning with them. Whatever it was, it would probably be very unpleasant. Instead, I looked at the fascinating object in my hands.

It was made mostly out of a strange gray material that was slightly lustrous and looked like metal but felt like very soft wood or plant fiber. It was a twisting organic form with a large loop shape on top that stretched from my waist to my head as I held it, with a horizontal flat section that I rested on my lap. In the loop, which was roughly elliptical, hundreds of tiny hairlike strands ran from one side to the other in three diagonal directions, so a network of tiny strings was formed. The strands were very fine and felt like silk or spider web. I had no idea how to play the thing, but I put my left hand on these strands and then rested my right on the flat space, which had many spiralling multicolored lines across its surface.

It was a beautiful object, and I suspected it would make a great conversation piece back on Earth (imagine a cross between a tennis racket and a small coffee table, designed by Salvador Dali), but how was one supposed to make music with it? The Kirullians looked on quietly and very still for once, waiting. I imagined them with tuxedos and opera glasses and almost burst out laughing. Idly my handed slipped across the flat section and the thing made a sound, a kind of murmuring, windy breath sort of sound.

The Kirullians' eye stalks moved forward slightly. Was that good or bad? I tried something else, sliding my hand in a different place. Another similar sound. I messed around some more and for some reason I soon found myself moving my left hand on the strands in a pattern as I dragged my right across the spiral lines. A beautiful, though not tonal by any standards I knew, phrase came from the instrument. I was amazed. It sounded like the wind with a vague, chiming, string-like quality to it, and it was great. I didn't know why or how I did it, though. Something was tugging at my mind, a feeling or urge- no, it was actually more like a presence.

I then had a very definite feeling, a feeling as if I had just had a long and uninterrupted conversation with a good friend who knew precisely what I had been talking about, a tremendously satisfied, accepted feeling. I could have thought this was a completely unnatural emotion, but at the time it seemed completely expected. But who had I been talking to? I was startled from my reverie by the sound of beautiful music and realized that it was coming from the instrument in my hands, and my hands were moving over it in languid, circular, unconscious motions. First I just let them go, not really thinking, just observing with one corner of my mind, like when you doodle with a pen on a napkin in a bar at the end of a night of imbibing strange tropical drinks with little umbrellas in them. Actually it wasn't like that at all, except for that same feeling of witnessing yourself involved in some not quite conscious activity.

Gradually I started figuring out how the sounds this thing made related to what I did with my hands. It seemed immensely complicated, but being a musician already I began to get some idea. The flat, spiralled surface had a very nonlinear musical relationship; if I followed the spirals the notes produced were microtonal, varying continuously at a changing, almost random rate, while if I crossed the lines I could produce regular jumps of notes. However, the colors of the spirals seemed to make a difference as to the exact timbral quality of the sound, and the colors changed, once again in an unpredictable way.

The grid of thin, hair-like strings controlled attack, volume, and actual note value, but some aspects such as sustain and decay seemed to depend on no physical action I could discern. This was quite simply the most intriguing musical instrument I had ever seen, and I gradually began making more experimental efforts in an attempt to understand it better. I made conscious decisions more and more, but still that element of emotional detachment filled me and propelled my fingers along surprising routes, as if I was obliging some external request. Yet in a reciprocal way, the instrument seemed to respond simply to abstract wishes on my part, desires or musical concepts that I had no idea how to carry out with my fingers on the strings. It was bewildering and shocking, almost terrifying me enough to make me stop. But I kept going.

I listened, and the music I was making was incredible; not beautiful by objective standards, but beautiful to me, awesome and surprising to me. But I realized the music was not just me. Everything about it felt and sounded like a collaboration, like I was jamming with other musicians, except that there were no other musicians- just me and the instrument. I began hearing three different versions of the music. One was a strange, completely alien music, four or five beats ahead of the real sound, floating in my mind, showing itself to me. To this I added my own ideas, edited, subtracted, changed, seemingly wrestling with some force, that external presence again, and combining to come up with a second image of music. This seemed to be the compromise, collective musical plan. Finally there was the actual music created and heard, which, as I got more and more used to the instrument, matched the second version in my mind with increasing accuracy. When it didn't match, I felt a discomfort or uneasiness, as if I had just had an argument with a good friend, with the amount of discomfort depending on how bad the match was. When it did match it felt good, like a cooperative effort of great value had just been accomplished.

As I played I kept marvelling at the experience and wondering what the hell was going on, noticing how much the music sounded like another person was involved. Finally I accepted the only possible conclusion, which had gradually dawned on me minutes ago.

This musical instrument was itself an intelligent being.

At first I had thought some other separate creature was telepathically taking part in my manipulations of the object, but the way it responded to my touch made it unmistakable- it was alive, and it was taking part in the conceptualization as well as the execution of the music. In a way, as I was playing it, it was playing me, which was one of the most amazing things I had ever experienced.

I, or rather, we played for about an hour, I think, the music flowing and changing, combining my ideas and those of the instrument in varying proportions, sometimes coming more from me, other times more from this other being, with my hands following its invisible direction. Always, however, it was a cooperative collaboration. Finally we seemed to agree on and plan out an ending, and as my left hand fingers wove a repeating, droning phrase from the strings the instrument gradually reduced its volume somehow, and I played one last tone cluster, which hung shimmering in the air and slowly faded.

I looked up as silence fell, noticing the Kirullians for the first time since I had begun playing. Five others had joined the two interrogators, and all were standing quite still, their eyestalks relaxed and laying down on their heads. One by one these optical organs stood up again and stared at me.

None of them spoke at first and I had no idea what their strange reaction meant, since to me all their reactions were strange. Were they convinced of my musicianship, or was what I just did complete trash to them? I didn't really care what their opinion was; it was the best performance I had ever done, on any planet.

I imagined the seething rage inside their alien bodies and minds, for they must be thinking of ways to punish such an abomination, such an affront to their musical sensibilities, to their entire planetary aesthetic and artistic standards. I reluctantly set down the instrument, feeling its presence leave my mind. Then I braced myself, preparing for death.

One of the newly arrived Kirullians stepped forward. "I am Khodge-B'Dariiy, vice-commissioner of the Kirullian Music Commission, and that," he waved his tentacles briskly, "was... absolutely amazing."

He gestured to the instrument, "Your skill on the Vrivarlieen is most exceptional, and therefore I am prepared to offer you a government sponsored three-year recording contract."

Needless to say, I was a bit surprised.

He showed me a magnetic data module, "this is a description of the details which are, of course... negotiable. You are also, of course, released from the custody of Inquisitor Ch'Arnul. Shall we discuss this further in my office?"

A free and happy man, I picked up the Vrivarlieen and followed the commissioner out the door.