Strange Music Read online

  Strange Music is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, alive or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2017 by Alan Dean Foster

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Hardback ISBN 9781101967607

  Ebook ISBN 9781101967614

  randomhousebooks.com

  Title-page image: © iStockphoto.com

  Book design by Dana Leigh Blanchette, adapted for ebook

  Cover design and illustration: Cletus Adams, based on images © mrjo/Shutterstock (Pip) and © RimDream/Shutterstock (Flinx)

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Preface

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Dedication

  By Alan Dean Foster

  About the Author

  FOREWORD

  ■ ■ ■

  by Kevin Hearne

  Growing up in the ’80s, there were plenty of big-name authors to choose from in the sci-fi/fantasy section. (Robots and dragons and quests, oh my!) But when I hit the bookstores, the big-name author whose work I always sought out first was Alan Dean Foster, and it was for a very specific reason: I knew that no matter what kind of story he wrote next, I would be entertained.

  Not lectured on politics or kinky social constructs. Not subjected to pages of speculative science or unpronounceable names with apostrophes in them. Simply, delightfully entertained. And since he’s written 126 novels and counting, I think that we can safely say Mr. Foster is one hell of an entertainer.

  He writes both science fiction and fantasy, and his book Spellsinger was the first fantasy I ever read. It was full of talking animals, an idea that obviously appealed to me very much when I began writing the Iron Druid Chronicles, but also tremendous humor and a vocabulary that, once absorbed, allowed my teenage self to score fantastically well on the verbal section of my SATs. To this day, he still uses words I have to look up and I geek out about it.

  Foster’s first-contact novels are among my favorites. A Call to Arms, the first novel of The Damned trilogy, introduces a composer on a boat in the Gulf of Mexico to not one but three different species who have come to Earth seeking help in a galactic war that has dragged on for centuries. The human talent for war could tip the scales and the composer tries his best to convince the aliens in spite of ample evidence that no, we’re quite peaceful really—look, I write music and drink wine! Most amusing to me are the chapters from the alien points of view, where humans are strange and terrifying creatures, and what’s more, their music isn’t particularly good.

  Nor Crystal Tears introduces humans to the Thranx, an insectoid species that eventually forms the Commonwealth with humanity; the founding of said Commonwealth gets its own trilogy beginning with Phylogenesis, and Foster wrote numerous standalone books and series set in that universe: Sentenced to Prism includes some unusual silicon-based aliens that still make me paranoid about quarantine procedures. One of them is named A Surface of Fine Azure-Tinted Reflection with Pyroxin Dendritic Inclusions, but the human protagonist rudely shortens it to a perfunctory “Azure,” which is just the beginning of a long series of miscommunications in a clash of cultures. It’s a recurring question in Foster’s work: How do we get along with people who are vastly different from us? His novels are full not only of thrilling conflicts but also diverse people living together in harmony, an alluring picture that makes me want to live in those worlds as well as see more of this one. That’s why picking up a new Alan Dean Foster book has always been a window to a better place.

  It was the Pip and Flinx stories that started it all for me. They feature a red-headed lad, Flinx, who has a telepathic bond with a flying minidragon named Pip. While being quite charming, Flinx also has a roguish streak to him and gets in so much trouble. In the second book, The Tar-Aiym Krang, Foster points out that “his morals were of a necessity of a highly adaptable nature.” If that’s not a recipe for shenanigans, I don’t know what is. Yet among the hijinks, the banter, and the tense action sequences are moments of poignant introspection as Flinx struggles to find his place in the world and deal with the legacy of his past.

  To say that this series was formative for me would be an understatement. The fact that it’s still going is a great joy because I never know what winsome treasure I’ll find on the next page—the happily named Truzenzuzex is still one of my favorite names to say aloud, ever—and I’ll always be indebted to Mr. Foster’s imagination for sparking mine and providing countless hours of enjoyable reads.

  I got to meet him at Phoenix Comicon a few years back and thank him personally. We’d both been living in Arizona for decades, but our paths had never crossed due to a sad fact of life: My meager salary as a high school English teacher had given me no disposable income to attend cons or signings or indeed do much else. My lot was to eat ramen, grade essays, and write stories about a Druid and his Irish wolfhound in my spare time. But then I wound up getting published by Del Rey—the same publisher as my favorite author!—and an editor arranged a meeting over breakfast. We had waffles in one of the con hotels and I managed not to scream. That was a truly fine day.

  And today is a very fine day for you, too, because now you get to discover so many amazing worlds full of fascinating critters and get happily lost in them as I did. From ship-eating fish and Devilopes on the planet of Moth to the Thranx philosoph Truzenzuzex and a species of tunneling bears, you’re in for a heck of a ride. Hold on!

  PREFACE

  ■ ■ ■

  Vashon killed a girl yesterday. She had beautiful flippers.

  Except she wasn’t a girl, exactly, and they weren’t flippers, exactly. But she was beautiful. Her black fur had been made partly iridescent and streaked and spotted fit to turn the head of the most jaded local. And now she was dead.

  He would have preferred to have avoided it. Unnecessary deaths too often led to complications. But she had been obstinate in defense of her mistress. Time and silence being of the essence to the operation, the soldiers under his command had been forced to cut her throat. To a Larian, that was the ultimate form of murder. To a human like himself, it was just another throat-cutting.

  Nasty business, it had been. But business all the same. Now it was going to pay off. It had better.

  And on top of everything else, he was going to have to compose yet another song.

  1

  ■ ■ ■

  “There’s a whale here to see you.”

  The pale pink sunsuit covered Clarity Held from neck to feet. Lighter than gossamer, it was akin to wearing a moderate blush. Photosensitive, it did what was necessary to allow the body to produce vitamin D while simultaneously preventing the wearer’s epidermis from burning. Brilliant as the work of any jeweler, the slender emerald coils of the dozing Alaspinian minidrag Scrap lay draped around her neck.

  Though Flinx wore a similar suit for similar reasons, his was all but transparent. As his olive-hued s
kin was much darker than Clarity’s, he required proportionately less protection from Cachalot’s burning tropical sun. The bright yellow star beamed down through a smattering of scattered cumulus that hung like cotton in a baby-blue sky.

  Though there was some moderate wave action beneath them, it did not jostle the platform that sustained their home. Hydrophobic construction materials kept it sufficiently elevated so that only the occasional breaking crest splashed against the underside. Small high-efficiency wave generators moored aft of their residence combined with solar coatings and energy storage to provide ample power for their needs irrespective of the weather.

  With a sigh Flinx set aside his imported antique fishing pole, careful not to make contact with the thumbnail-size stunbar that hung at the end of the high-test line. So far the day’s catch consisted of a pair of tubular o’otts, slick with the extruded oil that let them shoot through the tepid water, and a single migratory thamm. Not much more than a drifting brown mouth lined with electrified nodules, the thamm would be suitable only for the soup pot.

  Not much of a fisherman, he told himself. Not even after living on Cachalot for a year. His risible efforts were a running joke among the local dolphins.

  A brilliant crimson, blue, and green shape spiraled down to wrap itself around the hoop mast that served as a wind stabilizer for the extended dwelling. Though Pip seemed far more at home on Cachalot than any human, the truth was that to survive here she needed something only humans could provide: a dry surface. Unlike many of the Terran snakes she so closely resembled, she was not a particularly good swimmer. And her formidable arsenal of corrosive neurotoxin was useless for defense underwater.

  It served superbly for bringing down native aerial lifeforms, however.

  Squinting at the mast, Flinx saw that she had caught a wispl. Little more than airborne fragments of netting with eyes, wispls drifted in vast flocks over Cachalot’s world-girdling ocean, surviving by consuming the tiny eggs of those sea creatures who utilized the wind to disperse their offspring. As he watched, she munched casually on the fragile meal, radiating contentment and not in the least distracted by the enormous gray shape that rose partially out of the water on the port side of the residence, scarcely an arm’s length from her master.

  Turning away from his winged companion, Flinx confronted a fin whale that was longer than his home. Clarity’s announcement had been superfluous: he had sensed the approaching presence long before it had arrived. Like all its kind (except for the dolphins, who were endlessly effervescent and irrepressible, sometimes irritatingly so), the fin’s emotional state suggested vastness and warmth, intelligence and reassurance. It reminded him of nothing so much as a great old tree. Like the rest of the perfectly hydrodynamic form, the head was sleek. Water cascaded from the fluted flesh of the lower jaw as the visitor lifted its huge head to regard Flinx out of one contemplative eye.

  “Hello, Sylent,” Flinx offered by way of greeting.

  Sylent, who wasn’t as reticent as his name implied, replied in the profoundly deep basso of his kind. In their speech the baleens were less weighty than the catodons but more somber than the orcas or porpoises: neither profound nor playful.

  “Daylight Brightness to You, Flinxman. Goes well your Life, swims fast your Mate?”

  “Both wet a-going, thank you graciously. What propels your fine visit?”

  “News I bring. From Farefa’are’i. Of a New Person come see You.”

  The spaceport? Flinx tensed. He and Clarity were not expecting company. It was his experience that visitors meant nothing but trouble, sometimes of the potentially lethal kind. On the other hand, whoever had arrived had gone some way toward dispelling such concern by making the effort to announce themselves in advance.

  But why do so via cetacean? A simple “hello” via communit would have been much quicker. It hinted at a need for formal subterfuge. He remained wary yet intrigued.

  “Did the New Person give a Naming?”

  Water rushed beneath the hovering house complex as Sylent’s enormous head slid slowly back down into the water.

  “Surprise, I was told.”

  Unusual name, Flinx mused. Then he smiled to himself. “Surprise” was likely not the name of the visitor but a description of his or her arrival. It also helped to explain why the still-unknown individual had chosen this way of announcing their arrival.

  “Come soon, I was told also. Go now. Time to feed.”

  Flinx knew it was always time for the big baleens to feed, but he made no effort to stay the bearer of unexpected news. “Eat well, Sylent, and with my thanks go.”

  “So going, Flinxman. Cold Upwellings to your Mate.”

  And with a farewell lobtailing that soaked the port side of the habitat, the fin whale was gone.

  Flinx pondered a moment, then headed toward the living quarters that occupied the center of the residential platform. Clarity needed to be told. That visitors were a rare thing bothered neither of them in the least. Coming to this world in search of peace and privacy, they had discovered both in abundance. Cachalot, its scattered human inhabitants, and its millions of cetaceans had embraced the two newcomers and their needs without qualification, without question. It was as good a place in the Commonwealth as any in which to lose oneself without completely cutting the bonds of civilization. For more than a year now they had both been content, dwelling in isolation, humidity, and connubial bliss. While not regarded as intrusive, neither was visitation encouraged.

  It appeared that someone had sought him out, however. That was flattering, provided they had not come seeking his head. Or its contents. Few knew who he was. Even fewer knew what he was. Less than a handful were aware of what he could do, or what he had done. In Clarity’s company he sought anonymity and a little happiness, and had managed to find both.

  So he and his companion would welcome whoever had come looking for him, with food and drink and open arms, while keeping more lethal arms at the ready.

  He did not have to call Pip down from her high perch. His feelings, which the serpentine alien empath readily perceived, were enough to bring her to him. With her head resting on his shoulder, she used slitted eyes to search his face while a part of her mind melded with his own. Finding concern there but not fear, she folded her pink and blue wings against her flanks, coiled a portion of her muscular shimmering self loosely around his neck, and went to sleep.

  —

  The sturdy, sleek craft that announced its approach was typical of those that could be found for rent at the Farefa’are’i spaceport. The extruded metallic glass shell absorbed sunlight for additional power while protecting those within from Cachalot’s rays. With skids instead of floats, this model was one that was equally at home on land and sea.

  Guided by automatics, it slid into the U-shaped dock at the stern of the residence as effortlessly as a princess’s foot into a shoe. As it settled into place on the water, automated docklocks secured it. Reaching outward with his singular talent, Flinx had already determined that the visitor, for there appeared to be only one, posed no threat. If anything, the emotions he detected were a mix of anticipation and delight.

  Also, they did not emanate from anything human.

  Confirmation of his unique insight came in the shape of the figure that stepped out of the skimmer and onto the dock. Despite the presence of six legs and two small arms, the visitor moved as gingerly as if treading a knife edge. Completely encased in a survival suit, it tottered toward them as Flinx hurried to extend a helping hand. Despite the stability imparted by so many legs, he understood full well why their guest moved so tentatively.

  Save for a few demented individuals, all thranx were terrified of open water. Not only because their breathing spicules were located on their b-thorax, below their head and neck, but because their hard exoskeletons rendered them considerably less buoyant than humans. The attractions of swimming tend to pale when one has a propensity to sink.

  The emotional state of the new arrival had changed abrupt
ly to borderline panic immediately upon exiting the skimmer, even though the dock arguably offered a more stable platform than the craft.

  “It’s okay.” Flinx smiled as he kept a firm grasp on one extended, suited truhand. “This residence is synchronously stabilized and has survived some impressive storms.” With his other hand he indicated their aqueous surroundings. “We’re little more than flat calm today.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” the figure muttered as one foothand rose to unseal the protective cylindrical helmet. Freed from confinement, a pair of feathery antennae sprang upward. From her position on Flinx’s neck, Pip opened her eyes. Like her master, she, too, recognized the newcomer. So did Clarity, albeit frowning slightly in remembrance.

  “I know you. You’re Sylzenzuzex.”

  The young female thranx made a gesture with one truhand, then bowed slightly. Those bits of the chitinous exoskeleton that were visible through the transparent portions of the survival suit shone like burnished aquamarine-hued metal. Horizontal maroon stripes banded compound eyes that glistened like hammered gold. Even as a delighted Flinx reached out to make fingertip contact with the end of a forward-inclined antenna, she demurred. He could sense that her increasing anxiety threatened to overwhelm her.

  “Maybe you’d like to come inside?”

  “Anywhere away from all this water and as quickly as possible, srra!!ant.” Although she could have used symbospeech, she chose to reply in sharply accented but perfectly acceptable terranglo.

  Only when they had entered the habitat’s main room and Clarity had commanded all the windows to darken did the thranx finally squirm free of the survival suit. A single sling-pouch hung from her thorax. The gleaming enamel insignia embedded in the chitin of her right shoulder indicated her now-advanced rank within the United Church. A glance behind the thorax revealed the continued presence of all four vestigial wingcases. Still not formally mated then, Flinx noted. Freed of the enclosing survival suit and driven by hydrophobia, her b-thorax was pulsing far more rapidly than normal. He did his best to put her at ease.