The ancient Scottish curse has come to haunt you again, Nigel, I told myself, looking out over the swampscape of our target planet, Terra-class Alpha Lyrae IX. Seemed kind of unfair, since the curse concerned the play Macbeth, and I had done the opera. And done it long ago, before the wreck of my voice and hopes, before my self-imposed exile from the world of music, more a home than any planet could ever be.
Especially this one. Algae, reeds, algae, arborescent reeds, algae, reedlike insects ... so far this planet had diddly squat in the way of interesting life-forms, and probably less in the way of salable natural resources. Which meant no commission for me or my two co-surveyors.
Our pod--a spitball ptooeyed from the dropship--had slipped routinely into orbit around the greenish world. The dropship was already light-days away; it was to return for us in four Standard weeks. While waiting for atmospheric test results, we'd formed a band: Chris, our technician-datamonger, on mouth harp; me on harmonica; and geologist Reb on a specimen-tank drum. We sounded terrible, and elicited snide comments from our podboard AI, which had been endowed with the condescension of its human analog. But jamming beat hell out of listening to Reb recount his completion of the Kama Sutra's sixty-four tasks, or listening to Chris's silence. Or reciting my own litany of woes: the botched laser surgery that had ended my singing career; my hasty decision to fall back on my xenobiology degree and sign up with the survey company; and the fact that these two misfit surveyors were the closest thing to family I would ever have now.
At last, reaction thrusters flatulating, we had braked to a landing on the surface, just in time for a runny, puke-green dawn--the first of four so far, which seemed four too many.
"Even this blasted mealtube looks like a reed," I grumbled in camp, sucking protein after another uneventful shift. Chris was perusing lapcomp downloads, his long black hair obscuring his face.
"'S gonna be a long frickin month," Reb sighed. He grabbed a mealtube and plunked himself down next to Chris. "Anything worth anything?"
Chris shook his head, then quipped softly, "'Less Nige makes Pan pipes."
That did it. We struck camp and set out in the surface module for the next quadrant on the list.
And there Reb and I found them. An entire lakeful of bladderlike amphibians, their prickly sides expanding and contracting. They looked like bagpipes, and emitted a fascinating, harmonic droning. After listening for a few minutes, I was able to unravel some of the sounds: rather than all droning continuously, the creatures seemed to take parts. Each "voice" was actually a combination of two tones, modulated up and down like a tune in harmony with itself while weaving in and out of the other voices. I was transfixed, straining to find patterns. Phrases like "Dorian mode" and "twelve-tone" came into my head.
"It's beautiful," I murmured. Reb elbowed me in the ribs.
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