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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: All the universe is a stage when you are a member of the classical string trio Triaxion. As part of the Extra Terrestrial Diplomatic Service, former wunderkind and teenage burnout Mo Kessel has played on a hundred planets, serving out his time. He and fellow members Maire MacAuff Matsumi and Rupert Czaro find themselves forced to give a concert on Sk'rrl, for an audience of who look like a cross between a giant lobster and a grizzly bear, and whose taste might just run to something other than The Four Seasons. In fact, they soon find themselves playing for their lives.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Analog, 1998
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2002

16 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [128 KB], eReader (PDB) [49 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [37 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [34 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [80 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [109 KB], hiebook (KML) [108 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [68 KB], iSilo (PDB) [31 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [39 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [67 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [54 KB]
Words: 10567
Reading time: 30-42 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The concert was going badly. The audience was getting ugly.

And I mean ugly. They were completely and indelibly redefining the word and concept in a way I hope to never see matched again.

This was about three years ago, when Triaxion was playing on a planet named Sk'rrl. The average adult sk'rrli is about two and a half meters tall, and looks like an unhappy cross between a cooked lobster and an anorexic grizzly bear. Now take several hundred of these hulking creatures and whip them into a sort of lynch mob/soccer riot/piranha smorgasbord mood. Face that with an instrument in your hand and you begin to get the sinking feeling that any encores you might perform are going to be on harp, with heavenly choir for backup.

Being sensible folks, Maire, Rube and I--a string trio who performed under the name Triaxion--were scared spitless.

The only positive aspect of our situation was that dumb embasstard we called Dork was even more terrified than we were. If we were crapping bricks, he was on the verge of filling his pants with entire buildings. He had good reason. The sk'rrli who had him in their pincered paws seemed inclined to tear him limb from limb, eat him alive, or both.

It was definitely the low point of our concert.

"You must be joking."

Those were the Ambassador's first words as he stared across his desk at us. Not Hi, how was your trip? (after all, we had traveled two hundred and some odd light-years to get there) or even an insincere, but at least minimally polite Welcome to Sk'rrl. The expression on his long face matched this disdainful greeting. He had a lemon-sucker's mouth, a gin-drinker's breath, gimlet eyes, and the nostrils of his piccolo nose were flared as if smelling something bad. Nice hair though, a flowing silver mane that looked almost manufactured.

Maire, Rube and I exchanged a covert glance. Maire rolled her eyes. Rube grinned and turned to face Ambassador Dorchester Hepplewhyte, who in that moment forever became Dork in my mind.

"Three musicians meet at a bar after work," Rube intoned as if imparting critical wisdom. "A violinist, a flautist, and a pianist. The violinist puts down a five and orders a beer. The flautist does the same. The pianist hauls out a big wad of bills, peels off a hundred, slaps it down and says, 'Give me the best wine this dive has to offer.' The other two musicians stare at him a moment, then drag him off his stool and beat the living hell out of him."

Dork stared at Rube, face squinched with a mixture of bafflement and pique. "What the devil are you talking about?" he demanded.

Rube's grin took on a crazy edge. "Pianist envy."

Maire and I couldn't help snickering, both at the old joke and the look that appeared on Dork's face. He looked like a man who had just bit into something crunchy at the very moment he was noticing half a cockroach in his caviar. I knew that we had just dropped another dozen strata in his estimation. I should have cared more than I did, but I ask you, how much weight can you really give the opinion of someone with a name like Dork?