Nowhere was there sign of animate habitation. It was as though the builders had stocked the station as a hostel and center of information, and left it for travelers who could come in the following eons. Yet it was also the source of the very signal that banished travel. What paradox was this?
The hall opened at last to a small room — and abruptly terminated. There were no alcoves, no exhibits; only a pedestal in the center supporting a small intricate object.
They walked around it indecisively. “Does it seem to you that we are being led down the garden path?” Afra inquired. “The exhibits are impressive, and I am impressed — but is this all? A museum tour and a dead end?”
“It is all we are supposed to see,” Groton said. “And somehow I do not think it would be wise to force the issue.”
“We came to force the issue!” Afra said.
“What I meant to say was, let’s not start hammering at the walls. We could discover ourselves in hard vacuum. Further exploration in an intellectual capacity should be all right.”
Ivo was looking at the device on the pedestal. It was about eighteen inches long, and reminded him vaguely of the S D P S: an object of greater significance than first appeared. It was in basic outline cylindrical, but within that general boundary was a mass of convoluted tubings, planes, wires and attachments. It seemed to be partly electronic in nature, but not entirely a machine; partly artistic, but not a piece of sculpture. Yet there was a certain familiarity about it; some quality, some purpose inherent in it that he felt he should recognize.
He picked it up, finding the weight slight for so intricate an object: perhaps two pounds, and deviously balanced. The incipient recognition of its nature struck him more strongly. He ought to know what it was.
Something happened.
It was as though there were the noise of a great gong, but with vibrations not quite audible to human ears. Light flared, yet his eyes registered no image. There was a shock of heat and pressure and ponderosity that his body could not discern definitely, and some overwhelming odor that his nostrils missed.
The others were looking at him and at each other, aware that something important had been manifested — and not aware of more.
Ivo still held the instrument.
“Play it, Ivo,” Beatryx said.
And all were mute, realizing that in all the chambers there had been no musical devices.
Ivo looked at it again, this time seeing conduits like those of a complex horn; fibers like those of stringed instruments; drumlike diaphragms; reeds. There was no place to blow, no spot to strike; but fingers could touch controls and eyes could trace connections.
The object was vibrating gently, as though the lifting of it had activated its power source. It had come alive, awaiting the musician’s imperative.
He touched a stud at random — and was rewarded by a roll of thunder.
Beatryx, Afra, Groton: they stared up and out, trying instinctively to trace the source, to protect themselves if the walls caved in… before realizing what had happened. Multiphonal sound!
“When you picked it up,” Groton began—
“You touched a control,” Afra finished. Both were shaken. “The BONG button.”
“And now the thunder stud,” Beatryx said.
Ivo slid one finger across a panel. A siren wail came at them from all directions, deafening yet melodious.
He explored the rest of it, producing a measured cacophony: every type of sound he could imagine was represented here, each imbued with visual, tactile and olfactory demesnes. If only he could bring this sensuous panorama under control—
And he could. Already his hands were responding to the instrument’s ratios, achieving the measure of it, growing into the necessary disciplines. This was his talent, this way with an organ of melody. He had confined himself to the flute — Sidney Lanier’s choice — but the truth was that all of Schön’s gift was his. Probably there was no human being with greater natural potential than his own — should he choose to invoke it.
Ivo could not call out the technical aspects or discuss the theory knowledgeably; that was not part of it. He could not even read musical notation, for he had never studied it, choosing instead to learn by ear. But with an instrument in his hands and the desire to play, he could produce a harmony, and he could do it precisely, however complicated the descriptive terms for what he performed.
Now he developed that massive raw talent, bringing all his incipient skill to bear. He picked a suitable exercise, adapting for the flute at first, hearing the words as the song became animate. It was not from Lanier; that would come when he had command. One had to practice with lesser themes first. A trial run only…
Drink to me only with thine eyes and I will pledge with mine;
Or leave a kiss within the cup and I’ll not ask for wine.
The thirst that from the soul doth rise doth ask a drink divine;
But could I of Jove’s nectar sip, I would not change for thine.
The others stood as the simple haunting melody surrounded them, marvelously clear, almost liquid, possessed increasingly of that éclat, that soul that was the true artist’s way. The galactic instrument brought also the suggestion of a heady nectar… and the touch of magic lips.
Afra was staring raptly at him, never having heard him play before. Had that been his worst blunder? Not to employ the real talent he had?
Groton was staring at Afra…
No, he was staring beyond her! The blank wall blocking the continuation of their tour was dissolving, revealing another passage. The way was open again!
“The free ride is over,” Groton murmured. “Now we have to participate.”
They moved down it then in silence, Ivo still carrying the instrument. This hall opened into a tremendous chamber whose ceiling was an opaque mist and whose floor was a translucency without visible termination. There were no walls; the sides merely faded into darkness, though there was light close at hand.
They walked within it, looking in vain for something tangible. But now even the floor was gone. Physically gone: it too had dissolved and left them in free-fall, hanging weightless in an atmosphere. Their point of entry, too, had vanished; they tried to swim back through the pleasant air, but there was nothing to locate. They were isolated and lost.
“So it was a trap,” Afra said, seemingly more irritated than frightened.
“Or — a test,” Groton said. “We had to demonstrate a certain type of competence to gain admittance, after the strictly sightseeing sections were finished. Perhaps we shall have to demonstrate more, before being permitted to leave.”
They looked at Ivo, who was floating a little apart from the others, and he looked at the thing in his hands.
“Try the same tune you did before,” Afra suggested. “Just to be sure.”
He played “Drink to Me Only” again. Nothing happened. He tried several other simple tunes, and the sound came at them from all over the unbounded chamber, not simple at all, but they remained as they were: four people drifting in nebulosity.
“I persist in suspecting that the key is musical,” Groton said. “Why else that instrument, obviously neither toy nor exhibit. So far we may only have touched on its capability.”
“Do you know,” Ivo said thoughtfully, “Lanier believed that the rules for poetry and music were identical, and he tried to demonstrate this in his work. His flute-playing was said to be poetically inspired, and much of his poetry was musically harmonious. He even—”
“Very well,” Afra said, unsurprised and still unworried, though the web of the spider seemed to be tightening. “Let’s follow up on Lanier. He wrote a travelogue of Florida, one poor novel, and the poems ‘Corn,’ ‘The Marshes of Glynn,’ The Symphony’—”
“The Symphony!” Groton said it, but they all had reacted to the title. “Would that be — ?”
“Play it, Ivo!” Beatryx said.