Paths to the Stars

2. A Little Space Music-1

A Little Space Music

This story, which was published in the Spring 2012 issue of On Spec, you have to blame on my friend Robert Ursan, brilliant composer, amazing accompanist, musical-theatre director par excellence, and very funny man. He occasionally refers to The Sound of Music as The Sound of Mucus. And for some reason I thought, “The Squill are alive with the sound of mucus”...and this story was born. (Did I mention I’m an actor and singer with a long history of appearing in musical theatre? Though never any productions quite like these...)

* * * *

DRIPPING VISCOUS GREEN SLIME onto the brushed-steel plates of the recreation room floor, the pulsating blue slug reared until it towered a full meter above my head. Three eyes the colour of old blood reared up on black stalks, somehow remaining focused on me even as they weaved like demented cobras in thrall to acid jazz played by a drunken snake charmer. Its mouth peeled open like a gaping wound.

Then came the ultimate horror.

It began to sing.

“Midnight...”

Oh, no. No!

“Touch me...”

That which does not kill me makes me stronger, I reminded myself. I felt very strong indeed by the time Lloyd Webber’s oft-abused “classic” ground to its inevitable conclusion.

“Thank you, Mr...Urkh(cough)lisssss(choke). That was very...interesting. We’ll be letting...people...know in about a shipday.”

The slug grunted something that might have been “Thank you,” or might have just been a correction of my pronunciation of his—I checked the information sheet—oops, its—name, and slithered out, leaving a trail of green goop a meter wide in its wake. A cleaning robot scurried after it on clicking insectile legs, its elephant-like nose-hose swinging back and forth, slurping up the surplus mucus for recycling in the galley.

Groaning, I rested my aching head in my hands, twitched my jaw sideways three times to activate my implanted commbug, and croaked, “Next!”