Part 1
Watch for the conclusion in December 2025 Issue
Muzik stepped in a clump of flowers that resembled daisies, growing on a distant hillside overlooking the capital city of planet Fendor. His servos hummed as he backed up and adjusted his stance, careful to avoid damaging any more.
He bent over them and whispered, “Sorry little fellas.”
Muzik took a deep breath, filling accordion bellows within as he savored the aromatics without. What wonderful smells engulfed him in this good land! This scent like crushed lavender, that one like ground cloves, so refreshing compared to the recycled air of the ship that had just brought him here. He might be clunky metal on the outside, but his array of senses were hard won, and Muzik had vowed he would never take sentience and the gifts that came with it for granted.
He stood up and tilted his titanium head toward the powder-blue sky. A crystalline transport was making its ascent, engines whirring softly as it angled toward the heavens. Muzik waved at the ship, almost invisible to the eye.
“Buh-bye!” he hooted through his polymer lips. “See you in ten years!” And then, as an afterthought he trumpeted, “This time I won’t screw up!”
Oily moisture formed at the corners of Muzik’s eyes as he watched the vessel vanish. In the brightness of the morning sun, his irises contracted; golden-brown and of intricate filigree, they resembled delicate rosettes overlaid on the sound holes of ancient lutes. Tears spilled down his synthetic cheeks and he wiped them away with silver fingers. The transport vanished.
Muzik was alone.
“Whoever said ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’ deserved a firm kick in the gearbox!” He sighed. “Ah, well, the will of the Maestro and all that jazz. Not like I don’t know the program.”
And with a wheeze from his accordion lungs, he realized he didn’t know the program. Not really. Not the big one. Oh sure, he had achieved the sentient Minstrel 1000 series by comprehending that muzik—the Maestro’s complex compositions—weren’t just exercises in teaching musical nomenclature, they were intricately designed symphonies designed to teach his neural network the language of emotion. But that had been two hundred and sixty-three years ago, and he preferred not to count all the backwater worlds since then that he had done initial pioneering on, prepping them for the arrival of the elite Minstrel 2000s and their teams. Muzik’s life’s work, it appeared, would never rise above the lonely routines of a solo galactic minstrel operative.
“Field agent,” Muzik said, practicing his freshly downloaded Fendorian. “Just a fancy name for a sodbuster. I’m a musical clodhopper.”
Shame fountained up; Muzik hung his head. This was no way to start a mission! He was a member of the special forces, an advance operative in the Maestro’s expanding galactic task force where musical seeds were planted to transform rigid ideologies of alien species—like the cursed Archalon—into ascending harmonies of thought, peace, and cooperation. Not all invasions took place with armies—the most effective could be the injection into a culture of a word, a concept, a belief, or even . . . a song.
Muzik stared at the mushroom domes of the distant city. A faint veil of smog hovered over buildings gilded with amber sunlight. He stroked his chin. “Hmmm. Reminds me of the Cycanthlopan Mosques. Man-o-man, did those cats have rhythm.”
With that, Muzik smiled, his teeth rows of ebony and ivory. He clicked his heels together with a clang. “If this culture is anything like the Cycanthlopans’, I’ll be jammin’ on easy street!”
His irises dilated and contracted in rhythmic succession as he accessed his directives, hidden somewhere in a virtual reality labyrinth that materialized as a hedge maze, a marble manor glowing at the end. Ach! The Maestro and his games! But if he succeeded, everything the Maestro had collected about this world would now be his, and he had practiced this maze over and over on the flight in. Muzik flashed through the pathways, avoiding every wrong turn. Through the vast arrays of gathered knowledge, through the endless corridors of subroutines stacked with pearls of Fendorian wisdom, Muzik would be able to leap through megaflops of calculations and personalize his strategy for awakening another tone-deaf society to the wonders of music!
As the maze opened up to the steps and pillars of the glowing manor, Muzik leaped forward and caught his prize box just as the timer on its surface ticked to zero and it was about to float away.
“Gotcha!”
He popped the lid, looked triumphantly within . . . and his lips flapped with a frustrated gasp. The prize proved to be a few static-riddled radio transmissions. No detailed cultural studies from prosthetically disguised undercover operatives; no surveillance holos taken from cloaked satellites; not even FTL transmissions from a covert tap into the civic mainframe.
“Schmutz! Budget cuts!” Muzik looked up at the manor’s double doors of burnished triluminar and shook his fist. “You could have left me with the funnies section of their newspaper. That, at least, would have been something! Next time, poke a stick in my eye!”
The door chimed. Upon the surface materialized a Securazon keyboard, patterned after the enlarged wings of a Bytillian buzz-bug. Muzik had been working on the lock for decades with no success. So many color cells to those wings, and the sequence included chromatic scales, tonic frequencies, symphonic scores, and complicated emotional cues. The manor was a vault; the lock sealed its contents from Muzik. He had only cracked this safe once before—that was the day he had transcended from the computational android psyche . . . into the sentient 1000 series.
Muzik shuddered, which sent his virtual avatar into a cacophony of discordant notes. A dark feeling wormed through his consciousness. This time, he suspected if he didn’t succeed on this world he’d be demoted, and the lock would slowly fade away. He had seen it happen before to comrades who had failed to convert restrictive alien cultures to the enlightenment of music. Horrible confinement, hideous torment, the most excruciating agony a star-jumping Muzik Man could ever be afflicted with: tenure as minstrel-in-residence, teaching junior-level band to tone-deaf, flipper-fingered Purpluppians or some similarly encumbered race.
Muzik shuddered. He would never allow that to happen. And this time, he had a bold new plan. He called it Big Splash.
The sun now hung overhead as Muzik approached the capital’s suburbs. As he moved, his head bobbed on the stalk of his neck, matching the swing of his gait. His neck was covered in silver valves shaped like hieroglyphics adorning ancient temples. The valves opened and closed and whistled as he walked. His torso was polished silver splashed with synthetic swirls dark as chocolate. His sides were open and had accordion-shaped bellows within, inflating and deflating in steady rhythm. Along the front of his shoulders ran scroll-shaped sound holes, radiating a beat that matched the cadence of his step.
Ooom pah-pah, ooom pah-pah, ooom pah-pah-paaah.
He was close to the suburbs now, and his receivers picked up a transmission. Local television. How quaint. The capital’s single station was broadcasting video of a flowing brook with a chant repeating over and over: “One thought, one way, one mind.”
Definite nuances of Archalon influence. The Maestro wasn’t the only seed planter in the galaxy. Which was why Muzik was here, of course.
He spotted what appeared to be a farmer working rows of feathery plants and waved. The Fendorian four-footed it out of there. Muzik wasn’t surprised. On most worlds, those in the fields tended toward conservativism, and those in the cities tended toward progressivism. He needed to find just one curious soul to begin his work. Besides, Big Splash called for big conversions, and teaching a few agrarian workers how to play the spoons just wouldn’t do. He needed free thinkers! Bigger conversion numbers! Impressive field reports! Surely this was the way to advance in the Maestro’s labyrinthine system of android development.
Muzik crossed a vacant lot and stepped onto a sidewalk. Civilization! His arms swung at his sides, the acoustical joints moaning like strings on a bass. He loved all forms of music, but he had a particular fondness for Earth instruments and compositions. After all, his masters study that helped him advance to the 1000 series had been Planet Earth’s Evolutionary Progression of Music and Its Ripple Effect upon Funkterfusion, and it was then that he absorbed much of Earth’s cultural nuances at the genesis of his persona.
The domiciles along each side of the street were white domes, uniform in size and shape, resembling rows of mushrooms clinging to a tree limb. So silent. No locals out and about. Wait! There was one, a flash of white as the curtains were drawn.
Muzik had just the bait. He clinked his fingers together, added percussion to the melody of his gait, and raised a few valves in his neck, playing the sweet enticements of a trihorn.
As he crossed into the next block, a door in one of the domiciles cracked open.
Muzik stopped. Faced the door. Flashed his piano-key smile. “Why, hello there!”
Silence from within.
“Aw, please come out. I don’t bite.” Muzik bowed, his joints sighing like a bow drawn over cello strings.
Still nothing. Archalon influence, eh? Muzik tried a new lure. “I am a priest bearing the gift of truth!”
That did it. The resident came out its door and stepped across its perfectly manicured moss lawn to the sidewalk. The being’s torso was a long stalk with four stubby legs and feet at the base, two in the front, two in the back. It wore a gray cloak with draping sleeves as it waved spindly white arms. It tipped its mushroom-shaped head from side to side, revealing drab gills under its head dome. Three eyes blinked in unison along the curve of its head, it had a bump of a nose, and it wiggled cauliflower-looking ears.
Rows of fleshy rings that made up the stalk of the Fendorian’s neck rippled; two of the segments separated, forming lips through which it spoke. “What in great Gorunskian’s gorballs are you?”
Muzik’s body trembled with excitement. First contact! Okay, remember the Golden Directives: to the extent possible, show respect for alien customs (even when they are eye-pokingly stupid); wipe your feet on the doormat before entering a domicile (except on Karasite, where the doormats are the husbands); and never ever play Lazazarian funkterfusion unless the crowd is drooling drunk (even though it’s the coolest).
Muzik smiled and tapped his head; it rang like a church bell. “Why, I’m a Muzik Man 1000.”
“A wutza whaa?”
“Muzik Man 1000. Universal harmonic android.” He rolled his tongue into a cylinder, blew a whistling note, gave a snappy salute. “Muzik. At your service!”
The Fendorian flapped its arms. “Shhh. Try to keep it down. It’s Sabbabah.”
Muzik glanced left and right, lowered his volume. “Gotcha. And who do I have the pleasure of meeting on this fine Sabbabah afternoon?”
The Fendorian wiggled its torso. A handshake or bow? Maybe a nervous twitch? “I’m Hoagley of the maintenance guild.”
Muzik wiggled just to be on the safe side. “A pleasure! Forgive my inquisitive nature, but does your species have gender designations?”
“Waah. You’re missing a few bolts, that’s plain to see.” Hoagley pointed to his brown gills. “Male.” He scratched some flakes from his creamy-white head. “Are you that new invention of the sultans? I heard we were getting boomer boxes on street corners to recite the sacred words, but you seem mighty flashy for the sultans.”
“I am not a radio, Hoagley. I’m a Muzik Man.”
Hoagley leaned closer, his tone hushed. “So, what’s a Moo-zik Man do?”
“A Muzik Man makes music, music, music . . .” Muzik liked using the reverb with that line. Added a nice touch.
“What’s mu-isic?” the Fendorian asked in his croaky voice, trying to pronounce the word correctly.
“Magic, my boy. Pure magic!”
The Fendorian scratched more flakes from his head. “What’s ma-a-a-gic?”
Muzik’s body sagged like a spent bagpipe. “This world is gonna be a tough nut to crack.” Muzik rotated his head in a three-sixty. “Woo-hoo-hoo! What’s magic? What’s music?” A glissando of harp strings rolled from his sound holes. “Here, let me show you!”
The top of Muzik’s head unscrewed, rising with a whine of hydraulics on a thin pedestal, fanning out into a disk. Muzik put his hands together, cracked his knuckles. “Gimme some bones!” His fingers extended into long drumsticks that he lifted up to the cymbal balancing atop his head.
“First, you gotta have rhythm,” Muzik said, doing a quick tap number with his feet.
The Fendorian’s bulbous gray eyes were blinkless and blank.
“Beat, man,” Muzik said. “A beat!”
Muzik rapped his fingers against the cymbal.
Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss
Hoagley blinked rapidly.
“You like that?” Muzik said. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”
Muzik’s abdomen glowed bright. The black stripes swirled together, and a wide cylinder with a flat surface extended out from his chest as a snare drum. With one hand striking the cymbal, he lowered the other to his abdomen and drummed his fingertips against the taut surface.
Tappita-tappita-tappita-tappita
Then the cymbal.
Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss-tss-tss-Tssssss
“Feel the rhythm?”
Hoagley blinked his eyes even faster.
“Well then! Don’t just stand there, man! Tap your feet!” The Fendorian gave Muzik what could only be interpreted as a dumb blink. “Like this,” Muzik said, tapping his foot, the metal toes jingling like sleigh bells.
Hoagley gave a hesitant tap with his left forefoot. Blinked. Tapped again.
“That’s it, that’s it. You’re getting the hang of it.” Muzik slowed the tempo.
Hoagley tapped again and again and again, then alternated between all four feet, awkwardly matching Muzik’s rhythm. His eyelids fluttered like butterflies. “I feel it,” he said. “OoooWaah.”
“Hey,” Muzik said, flashing a smile, “you’re getting the hang of it. There’s hope for this world yet.”
Muzik scanned his repertoire of songs, chose something with an easy beat, a rachta from the Kintanna system. He shifted the tip of his tongue into a small round ball, struck it against his teeth. Resonant marimba tones spilled from his mouth, swirled sweet as melted chocolate down the street.
“OoooWaah, OoooWaah, OoooWaah,” Hoagley said, bobbing up with each “Oooo” and down with each “Waah.” He tried tapping his teeth with his purple tongue, but no sound resulted. “How do you do that?” he asked.
“Ith eathy. Ooopth, thowwy.” Muzik shifted his tongue back to speaking mode. “It’s easy. Here, grab that waste receptacle lid, and that one from your neighbor. Go on!”
Hoagley hesitated.
“Go on. I have more truth to show you!” Sometimes, the Archalon made it too easy.
Hoagley grabbed the lids, brought them back to Muzik, holding them out like plates.
“Okay, now hold the handles in each hand. Good. Now hit them together every time you tap your foot. Try it!”
The Fendorian gave them a little knock against one another, and a hollow clang joined the medley.
“A good start! Now, a little harder.”
A loud clang rang out. Hoagley stopped, wide-eyed. “I’ll disturb the neighbors’ meditation. I better not. It’s Sabbabah.”
How could Muzik work with a sacred day? “Do they let you sing on Sabbabah?”
“Sah-ing?”
“Sing. As in ‘singing.’ Vocalization of musical sounds? Speaking words with melodic tones?” Muzik demonstrated by alternating his pitch. “Loooow. Hiiiiigh. Buuuut with words like thiiiis.”
“Hmmm . . . the Chants of the Archalon we speak at temple on Sabbabah morn sound a little like that.”
“Well, there you go! You do chants on Sabbabah. We’re just going to spice them up with a bit of musical accompaniment. Go on, give it a try. If your neighbors come out, we can teach them too. They’ll love it!”
Hoagley glanced up the street. “Uhh, I don’t know.”
“Come on! Work with me here, Hoagley. On three. And a one, and a two, and a three . . .”
As the Fendorian picked up the beat, Muzik bubbled with excitement. He leaned back and blasted air through the valves in his throat. The wail of a saxophone blared across the neighborhood, heady and wild. Music was happening; this is what he lived for. And with the Archalon seeding this planet for who knew how long, he tossed out the subtle approach—this world was going to need a lot of shaking up.
Hoagley’s neighbors came out from their domes, a few at first, then more and more, seeking the source of the unworldly commotion.
Just what Muzik wanted. Big Splash was working! How many converts? How many marks could he add to his tally for the day? He’d convert this planet in record time. Perhaps this was how those mysterious 3000 series did it: one bold move that swept the planet by storm. Like the Beatles!
Hoagley’s mate came toward them, lacy chartreuse gills swinging under her dome head like curtains in a stiff breeze. At least, Muzik assumed it was Hoagley’s mate because one, she came out of the same dome, two, she had two little ones clinging to her back, and three, Hoagley seemed to be so purposely ignoring her. Muzik liked their baby ’shrooms, so cute with their little faces all scrunched up like they were about to fill their britches. He gave them a wink, and they bobbed down, only to peek out a few seconds later from their mother’s sides to see if Muzik was still there. Muzik ran a stanza of Universal Infant Phonics through his melody—gootchy-gootchy-gootchy-goo—and the ’shrooms blinked in surprise.
Hoagley’s mate was not so easily charmed. She cast a discordant note into the melody by clearing her throat, trying to get Hoagley’s attention. When that didn’t work, a jab to his side did the trick.
Hoagley turned to her, still crashing his trash lids together. “Darna! Didn’t know you were there. Isn’t this wonderful?”
Darna waved her fist, almost spilling one of the ’shrooms. Her voice was loud and shrill; Muzik thought she would make a good Bendorian piccolo. “Hoagley, what do you think you’re doing? What’s gotten into you?”
Hoagley blinked his eyelids rapidly, slammed his makeshift cymbals together. “Music!”
Muzik thumped his drum. “You’re losing the beat, Hoagley. Concentrate. Concentrate. We have an audience.”
“Sorry.”
Hoagley slammed the lids together in earnest, and little toadstool children jigged in delight. Most of the neighbors that had come out were all goggle-eyed, some touching Muzik to see if he was real, some giving him the evil triple eye like Darna, and a few grabbing trash-can lids and making their own attempt to join the jam.
Darna’s eyes grew dark. “Hoagley, don’t you know this must be illegal?”
“How could it be?” he said as he slammed the lids together with a crash. “We don’t even have a word for it!”
She jabbed him with her finger. “If the ancient worthies wanted us to make this . . . this . . . noise, don’t you think it would have been written in one of the seventy-three Tomes of Ascension?”
Hoagley shrugged. “They must”—Clang—“have overlooked”—Clang—“something.” Clang—“I always thought”—Clang—“the seventy-third”—Clang—“ended sort of”—Clang—“abruptly.”
“Well, you’re disturbing Sabbabah. There is a law against that!”
“But look at everyone. They love it! It’s a chant with sounds!”
“Well I don’t love it,” she said. She waved her fist at Muzik, causing her shoulder to slope. A ’shroom slid off, dropping to the moss with a thud. It wailed in shock.
Hardly missing a beat, Muzik extended his arm and wrapped his fingers around the ’shroom. He hoisted the baby back to its mother’s shoulder, then gave it a pat on the head. “There, there.” He cooed. “Gootchy-gootchy-gootchy-goo.”
Darna glared at Muzik with all the fury of her three eyes. “I don’t know where you come from, mister, but I’m calling the constable!” She looked sternly at her mate. “Hoagley?”
He slammed the lids in sync with his other neighbors. “In a minute, my little puffball.”
“Don’t you puffball me! You know what’s going to happen when the constable comes. You’d better be back in our dome before his patroller pulls up.” She looked at the crowd. “All of you!” She spun around and marched back to her dome, the little ’shrooms bouncing madly against her back.
“Sorry about that,” Hoagley said, pausing to talk to Muzik. “She’s really quite nice once you get to know her.”
Muzik smiled, clacking his tongue against the ivories. “I’m thur thee ithh. Nexth thime, I thry a lullaby on her. Thur to thoften even the tougheth nut.”
“What’s a lull-a-ba-by?”
Muzik shook his head, and his tambourine ears jingled. “Forgeth ith.”
With that, Muzik spun in a circle and jigged like a piper. More and more neighbors poured into the street, arching their necks to see what in Fendor could make such wondrous sounds. Big Splash was the bomb! Giddy with the response, Muzik kicked in his amps, projecting synthesized chords from his sound holes. Everywhere, Fendorians murmured, “OoooWaah, OoooWaah, OoooWaah.”
From the end of the street, a siren quacked and hissed. Muzik cranked up his volume and wove the siren into the performance. Some of the neighbors matched his jig, and a synergy of bounding rhythm rolled across the crowd.
Muzik heard a door slam, and moments later a red-cloaked Fendorian parted the masses, shouting at people to go home. Muzik saw him approaching, knew he must be the constable, but everyone was blinking so happily, he just couldn’t stop. The constable shoved his way in front of Muzik and pointed a nasty-looking black cane in his face.
“Great Gorunskian’s Gorballs!” the constable said. “What are you?”
Muzik kept playing and jigged from one foot to the other, but he rolled his tongue flat for better diction. “Why, sir, I’m a Muzik Man 1000.”
“What’s a Muzik Man?” the constable asked.
Muzik turned up the reverb. “A Muzik Man makes music, music, music . . .”
“Well I say you’re funny looking.”
“Thank you.”
“I also say you’re disturbing the peace, and on Sabbabah no less.”
“I beg to differ, sir. I’m creating peace. Look at everyone’s eyelids. See how happy they are?”
The constable’s eyes bugged out. Muzik took it for a frown, a grimace, maybe gas.
“Inciting public assembly without consent of the sultans is illegal,” the constable said, tapping the cane against his palm. “I’m going to have to ask you to accompany me.”
Muzik flashed his ivories. “Of course, Officer. What would you like to sing?” He tapped his midriff drum and head cymbal. Bum-bum, tsssss. Rimshot. He snapped his fingers. “Hey, I’ve got your number! Wagner! See what you think of Ride of the Valkyries.”
Muzik performed a raging sample.
“I’ve had enough!” the constable said. “Let the holy sultans decide your fate. You’re coming down to the senate.”
“The sun ants?” Muzik asked, shouting over the blaring music and the sudden crash of Hoagley’s trash lids as he caught the new beat. Muzik beamed with pride: he had made his first disciple. This world would be a breeze, and he gave himself special marks for the way he had just laced the sound of a kazoo through Wagner’s tempest. He’d have to remember that one.
The constable waved his cane like a baton. “No, no, no! The senate, you dope. Turn that racket down! You don’t mean to tell me you haven’t heard of the senate?”
Muzik lowered the volume. “Can’t say that I have. Are there lots of Fendorians there?”
“Of course! It’s the religious center of the universe!”
Muzik adjusted his linguistic program, and the Fendorian word he had been translating senate became synod. “Well then,” Muzik said, excited by the opportunity to make more converts, especially religious ones, “lead on, Macduff!”
Hoagley lifted one of the trash lids between himself and the constable. He leaned forward, and his eyes were huge bulbs as he mouthed the words You don’t want to go there.
Muzik tilted his head and pitched words off the trash lid so only Hoagley could hear them. “I’ll be all right, sport. I’m here to reach as many Fendorians as I can. My job security depends on that.”
The constable gave Muzik a shove. “Move it, bud!”
Muzik waved goodbye to Hoagley, then turned his volume back up and clashed his cymbal. “Keep practicing!” He waved to the dispersing crowd. “All of you! I’ll be back. Promise!”
An adolescent Fendorian in that awkward, button-headed stage held her ground, refusing to leave. Tears welled in her eyes as she swayed to melodies stirred within her. Muzik knew that look on any world—teenagers were the most fertile fields for minstrel operatives. He gave her a knowing flash of the ivories. Seed planted. The roots would run deep in this one.
The constable jabbed Muzik with his cane, pushed him toward the honking car. Muzik marched in compliance, but thundering Valkyries led the way.
The joint. The slammer. The big house. The crusher. Muzik knew all the terms in hundreds of languages from dozens of worlds. He didn’t mind jail. Muzik did his best work with a captive audience.
This crusher was underground, white rock caverns sealed off with steel doors, with solid bars bolted over ventilation shafts. Horrible lighting—overhead fluorescents—but delightful acoustics with the high ceilings and stone walls. There were twenty Fendorians in Muzik’s cell. After processing, it was lights out, and these cats slept like rocks. He had planned on spending the night working the puzzle lock to the Maestro’s vault, but the labyrinthian maze had shifted, and he ended up spending the night chasing dead ends. He suspected he was being punished for letting his anger get the best of him. Probably not a good idea to tell the Maestro to poke a stick in his eye, because changing the maze sure felt like it.
After the morning trays—Muzik didn’t need nourishment, but he had accepted a tray anyway—his cellmates had pulled their sleeping pads around to Muzik’s, where he sat in a sukhasana pose. It was strange to see them mimic him, crossing four legs as they sat down.
A brown ’shroom Fendorian cleared the wattles of his throat and wiggled in greeting. “Name’s Beez. Do that thing again.”
Beez’s sleeves were rolled up, revealing intricate scarification. Muzik translated one of the words marked in his flesh. Momma. He figured this would be a good one to start with, what with loving his mother so much and all.
“What thing?” Muzik said. He had changed his preferred lighter-pitched persona into a raspy, lounge-lizard character. Rule 337 in the Galactic Minstrel Operative’s Database: Reflect your audience. When they see themselves in you, their soil softens.
Beez pointed a spindly finger at Muzik’s neck. “That thing you do. Those sounds you whispered, in your sleep last night.”
Another said, “He was just snoring, Beez.”
Beez gave him the three eyes. “I know what I heard.”
Muzik nodded, setting the metal discs in his ears jingling. “I was meditating. Sorry if I disturbed your sleep—that just happens with me. It’s called music.” He didn’t add reverb—plenty of it in here.
“Do it for us, that moo-sick.”
Rule 338: Show personal interest before proselytizing.
“Sure thing, Beez. But first, let’s chew the lichen. Tell me what you’re in for.”
Beez fingered his neck wattles. “For painting my domicile.”
Muzik wondered if he should adjust the definition of that Fendorian word to “home,” but he had noted the dome was an intrinsic element to their dwellings—perhaps because it matched the shape of their heads. He let it be.
“What, you tagged your own home with graphic illustrations?” Seeing what appeared to be confused scrunching of Beez’s eyes, Muzik tried again. “You painted symbols on it, like those on your arms?”
Beez leaned his head back and let out a hoot that lifted his gills. “You crazy? I would have been capped for that, not even a trial.”
“Capped?” Muzik had no translation for their slang.
Beez drew a finger across his neck. Oh. Muzik understood that sign.
“You see, the painters’ guild has rules on color. Domiciles must be pure white, inside and out. But this was my own dome, and me and the missus moved to the edge of the ’burbs to avoid all the scrutiny, know what I mean? Thought the civic inspector wouldn’t catch us. This was inside, in our little puffball’s sleep room.”
“What color could be so offensive to get you thrown in jail?”
“Eggshell.”
Muzik flapped his polymer lips, making the sound of a spent balloon. “Jeepers, creepers, Beez! What a constipated culture!” He snapped his fingers. “But I’ve got just the laxative! You know, medicine? I’m going to teach you the blues.”
Beez held up his hands. “I don’t want no trouble, man. I’m in it deep enough as it is just dipping my brush in the off-whites.”
Muzik snorted through his trihorn. “No, not blues. The blues.”
“Wutza whaa?”
“Okay, you know those sounds I make?”
Beez nodded. “Yeah, you called it moo-sick.”
“Right. Music. Well, this is a name for a certain type of music. Music for sad times, but ‘A shared sad is half as bad,’ or so my Maestro says. And not all the songs are about one’s troubles. They can sing about hope, too.”
The others nodded at the word hope. One shriveled Fendorian said, “Mmmm-hmmm. We could all use a good helping of that.”
Beez leaned forward, three eyes bright. “Teach me this color.”
Muzik grinned. Twenty new converts today for sure!
“That’s why I’m here,” Muzik said.
Muzik thought way back, to his favorite planet, to his second-favorite musical genre, to a tune by Muddy Waters. Nobody sang the blues better than Muddy, not nobody, not on any world. And Muzik knew, sure as the marks on Beez’s arms, this song would leave an impression on his heart. Forever.
“Okay, cats. Bring me one of those buckets against the wall—preferably one you didn’t do your number in this morning. Great. Now who here has some spoons? No?” Muzik blared a ta-dah from his horns and held up two. “Why, would you look at this. I must have sticky fingers.”
Watch for the conclusion of The Muzic Man in our next issue.
