The Sirens of Space (2 page)

For it’s Springtime on Ishtar, me darlin

It’s payday, come lager an’ carolin

An’ me dusty, dry glass needs a-fillin

By a lusty young lass who’s a-willin.

A tall, muscular man broke through the
cluster at the bar, carrying four steins of lager. Swarthy and
bearded, he wore maroon thermoflax coveralls and black leather
boots. He ambled tenuously to a round wooden table in the center of
the room, with most of his cargo intact. At the table, three others
sat by candlelight, two in native attire and a Cosmic Guard yeoman.
They were engaged in heated conversation lost in the din of the
crowd.

Now the girlies o’Ishtar ain’t pretty

Nor graceful, nor charmin, nor witty

But it scarce matters me, as I dally

While the icy winds roll through the
valley

An’ it’s Springtime on Ishtar, me
darlin....

“
Laddy,” said a native with a heavy
Ishtari accent. Scraggly patches of beard covered his craggy face,
and he wore a blue knit cap. “Ain’t no slimy lizard can tell me,
pack up an’leave. A scant six month gimme bare time to ’coup me
costs o’gittin there, an’ they have the bloody gall to swoop down
from the sky an’ farce me off, an’ escort me half-back
here.”

The bearded native distributed his catch
from the bar. “Well, Cyrus,” he said. “Ye did after all let them
carry ye off, wi’out liftin s’much as a hand-laser agin them. Ye
know, we seen how they scattered when the laddies came after’em
proper at Hawkins. If ye’d just stood your ground—”

“
Pssh.” The second native made room
for the bearded one at the table and cast a side glance at the
green-shirted yeoman sitting across the table. “Ain’t no blamin
Cyrus, now. Ye know bloody well it’s these limp-wristed Cozzies
what’s too bloody sissified to be protectin decent folk agin them
stinkin sallymanders. If it showed us anything, Hawkins taught us
that, it did.”

Cyrus sipped his lager. Bloodshot eyes
flashing, he turned to face the yeoman. His mouth twisted into a
sly grin, as if welcoming the fight he hoped to provoke. “Spacer,”
he hissed, “ye say ye’re not lackin sympathy. But them lizards is
gittin bolder by the day, makin it so’s honest merchants like us
can’t survive. ’Twixt them an’ the pirates, we risk our hides ev’ry
time we sail, an’ all we git from yer kind is preachin and
promises. Well, laddie, where’s our help?” The others at the table
gently pounded the table, indicating their agreement.

Like all servicemen in the region, the
yeoman had become quite adept at deflecting questions like this.
Locals accosted CosGuarders randomly on every planet and colony
along the frontier, demanding answers to the alien threat. It never
helped to remind them that if they stayed on Terra’s side of the
Neutral Zone, the Crutchtans wouldn’t bother them.

“
Gentlemen, we have our own problems,”
he began, reaching for his stein. “We can’t ignore Crutchtan abuse
of our citizens, but it’s bad tactics to confront an enemy without
knowing his capabilities. Besides, the human race doesn’t revolve
around Ishtar.”

“
Bosh an’ bahanna!” bellowed Cyrus.
“Them lizards has pushed us out o’too many systems already. If we
don’t draw the line soon, they’ll be half-back to Earth herself
afore the rest o’ye even blink. An’ besides, all we be hearin from
ev’ry corner is not to worry, because our ships is so
superior.

“
Well, the whores can all go lonely
for the good it does us, if we still git ourselves pushed around.
An’ if you Cozzies keep givin ground each time they hiss at ye,
there’s naught akeepin us from the lizards’ stewpot.” His
companions all agreed.

The yeoman shook his head sadly. Reasoning
with spacers was like teaching algebra to a mutluk, he though. And
reminding them that the Crutchtans were vegetarians only made
matters worse. “I’ve no love for them either, but they’re hardly
savages. They’re advanced enough for space flight, after all.”

“
Cozzie,” rasped Cyrus, his eyes
blazing in the candlelight. “Ye never met them creatures face to
face, like I did. Never felt their slimy hands on your skin, nor
looked in them slitty eyes to see the devil’s own soul.” He emptied
his stein and wiped his mouth in his sleeve.

“
I tell ye, them monsters won’t be
restin until they’ve destroyed us.”

Fortunately, one of the spacer’s friends
interceded. “Laddies,” said the one lately returned from the bar,
“we’ve enough trouble these days, wi’out goin for each other’s
throats. To spacers,” he said, lifting his stein. “The sorriest lot
o’bastards in Terra.”

“
To spacers,” chorused the
others.

Around them, the clamor grew like a dust
storm on the Ishtari plains. Old friends shouted greetings across
the dimly lit room, and the talk became militant on subjects
ranging from trade tariffs to the shortage of women on the
frontier. Everyone drank as if dying of thirst, and hoarse voices
raised hearty choruses about asteroid mining and Demetrian summers,
pirate raids and outlaw heroes.

For ten long years, they never found
him.

Ten long years, they’ll ever hound him.

An’ the night he left New Dublin town

A star rose in the sky,

An’ the light that burns forever

Is the gleam in Danny’s eye.

The yeoman and two of his new friends joined
in the singing, which shook the rafters and echoed in their groggy
heads. It felt odd, celebrating one of CosGuard’s darkest moments;
but he was a Demetrian, after all, and Danny O’Donovan was a legend
in the folklore of his youth. Cyrus stared ahead, his jawbone
twitching. At his table, he alone refused to join the
merriment.

A hundred howlin’ Cozzies couldn’t catch
him.

No outlaw band could make a stand to match
him.

An’ one day, for fun he stole a frigate

From the Cosmic Guard

An’ gave it to the settlement

At Mullinberry’s Star.

“
They’ll destroy us,” muttered Cyrus,
oblivious to the cheer resounding through the pub. Amid the chorus
of voices, none could tell that his accent had changed. “Or we’ll
be destroyin them.”

Outside, five
small
figures, shivering in the cold, emerged from the shadows and walked
tentatively toward the pub, looking about nervously with each step.
They could feel the warm glow inside, and heard the laughter and
singing. The voices sounded guttural, like animals at play. Yet
there was something familiar, almost friendly, about the sounds, as
if beneath the snarling bluster beat hearts pulsing with kinship
and kindness. Huddling together for warmth, they paused in front of
the door.

After more than a few moments of hesitation,
they entered and walked down the steps to the inner door.

A stunned silence
fell
over the bar. Ninety-five and one-half pairs of eyes followed the
small creatures slowly walking from the door to the bar. The wind
whipped against the outside wall; inside, hushed voices carried
whispers of the carnage to come.

There were five of them. The tallest
stood almost five feet tall; the heaviest weighed about a hundred
pounds. Even without the strangely colored outer cloaks and their
eerie, floating manner of walking, their bald pates and translucent
skin were unmistakable. Slowly, whispers crept across the room as
lips mouthed the hated word:
aliens
.

They were Veshnans, from the diplomatic
mission negotiating on behalf of the reptilian race of Cruthtans
who claimed the disputed region of space on the other side of the
Neutral Zone. Tiny skin flaps on top of their heads hid their aural
membranes, and two small slits squeezed between two large, pale
pink eyes, served as nostrils. But a human-sized mouth, in an oddly
familiar place at the conflux of cheek and chin bones, gave them an
unexpectedly human appearance. Quilted gold tunics beneath their
cloaks draped their bodies, and slate gray scarves dangled from
their necks.

An ominous murmur pulsed through the crowd.
Sullen men withdrew from the bar as the aliens, closely grouped and
clinging to each other for safety, approached. Timidly, one of the
creatures grasped the railing and stood, tiptoed, peering over the
bar into the curious face of the barkeep.

“
Five glasses of prune juice, please,”
it said in a clear and unaccented voice. Jumping with surprise,
the startled barkeep knocked over a half-dozen glasses, which
shattered loudly on the floor and caused everyone nearby to yelp in
alarm. But he had the presence of mind to overcharge his strange
customers for their drinks, and watched in wonder as they strolled,
prune juice in hand, toward the center of the pub to survey the
room, blissfully unaware of the tension growing around
them.

Presently, one of the aliens pointed to a
table at the far corner of the pub, near the entrance to the
sanitary annex the building shared with the one next door. The
others nodded and exchanged a singing chorus of voices. After
several moments of melodious debate, the aliens started walking
toward the table. Before them, the crowd parted; angry stares
followed them.

Lost in thought and seated at the table was
a CosGuard officer, with the eyes of a poet. Sitting quietly by
himself in the farthest corner of the pub, he seemed uncomfortable
and out of place, and looked to all the world like someone who’d
just lost his best friend. The three gold stripes on his
space-black epaulets showed him to be a full commander, and the
subordinates aboard his ship knew his sharp voice with its edge of
steel and ring of command. But the lager had dulled his senses
along with his mind, and his eyes had long since gone glassy with
drink. Among the crowd, he was the only one who’d failed to notice
the strangers’ arrival in the pub, and it was only by chance that
he raised his eyes to see them walking slowly toward him. By the
time he cleared his windpipe of the drink that his sudden gasp drew
into his lungs, the newcomers had arrived at his table and were
busy making themselves at home. Under the murderous glowers of the
crowd, he realized that he was beginning to perspire.

“
Excuse me, Commander,” one of them
said, “but we recognized your uniform and thought it would be
interesting to chat. Do you mind if we join you?”

The commander would come to wonder why he
was not surprised by the alien’s flawless speech. At the time, all
he could do was take a deep breath and emit a soft, involuntary
whimper. His eyes quickly darted about, desperately seeking help.
When he’d entered, the pub had sparkled with Cozzie colors,
mingling with the natives. Now, he searched vainly for a friendly
face.

“
Please sit down,” he said at last,
clearing his throat. Despairingly, he caught sight of the last
remaining Cozzie discreetly slipping out the door. It meant, he
realized to his horror, that he was now trapped, surrounded, and
quite alone. As his mind struggled to free itself from the effects
of the lager, all he could do was wonder why having a quiet beer by
himself was proving to be such a problem.

“
Making peace means making contact,”
the alien linguist said in a tone that seemed to admit no debating
the point. “It is more than merely talking across a conference
table. We decided to mingle, as you call it, to help us better
understand each other.”

“
Admirable,” said the Terran, his
voice cracking. He’d heard stories, but always wondered what bar
brawls on Ishtar were really like.

“
This world seems far too cold,” the
alien continued, shivering at the memory of walking outside. “Why
do so many chose to live here?”

“
It’s close...to...resources,” the
commander said absently, gazing about him.

“
But a quarter-billion people? Our
scientists say that your biology is similar to ours, and that we
prefer similar climates. So, when we first arrived....”

Nodding politely, the commander was not
paying attention to his guest. He was watching the crowd, and he
did not like what he saw.

* * *

Minutes seemed
like
eons.

The commander felt every eye watching him.
Murmurs coursed through the room and darkened with anger, the tone
growing more menacing with each passing heartbeat. As his head
struggled to clear itself, panic rose to take the place of the
beer. Across the table, the alien kept chattering merrily, as if
they were all long lost friends exchanging pleasantries and gossip.
Either fear was as alien to Veshnans as they were to Ishtar, he
thought to himself, or they had no sense of the trouble they were
causing.

“
We find your music interesting but
incomprehensible,” said the Veshnan. “There is so much noise, there
is so much chaos. But our hearing senses are quite similar, so we
are told, and we know that there must be something we are missing.
Perhaps it is some structural form or convention?”

“
It’s the emotional content, I think,”
the Terran said absently. “Your experience with us is too limited
to sense clues we grasp immediately, but barely notice. And our
musical instruments are probably different enough to confuse
you.”

The alien smiled. For an instant, the danger
they shared faded from the Terran’s mind, and the commander found
himself charmed to the point of captivation. In the middle of a
room filled with hate, it shined like the gentle sun of an Isitian
Spring, warming everything and everyone with the glow of renewal.
The alien’s smile, to the Terran’s amazement, looked like the
sweet, innocent smile of a human infant.