A Call to Arms Read online

  An F-sharp gave Will Dulac pause. He leaned back in the chair and stared moodily at the array of instrumentation assembled before him. The quiet hum of the synthesizer was the only sound in the port fore-cabin.

  He ran the fingers of his left hand through his dark, wavy hair. It was shrinking yearly, retreating from his forehead and concealing itself somewhere down the back of his collar. That steady subsidence, like a glacier in retreat, was partly why he had chosen to grow the outrageously bushy sideburns. Also he wanted to do something distinctive and different with his appearance, just as he did with his music.

  The first half of Arcadia was done and the remainder sketched in. But the scherzo that led into the concussive concluding allegro energico was giving him nothing but trouble. Not the music itself: the notes were there, dark and immutable, within the laptop’s program. It was the orchestration that was driving him crazy.

  He’d planned from the outset to begin the scherzo with flutes counterpointed by a single bassoon. The result would be driving yet comical, a bit of musical black comedy Berlioz or Bartek would have appreciated. Then have the second violins and the basses pick it up before segueing into the neat little toccata for brass he’d put together. The toccata worked fine, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to get from the end of the adagio to the scherzo. He was at an orchestral impasse.

  Nothing sounded right. The flutes seemed lost and the bassoon, instead of protruding mournfully, came across like a dyspeptic tuba, a refugee from the Saturn movement of Hoist’s Planets.

  He stared angrily at the MIDI board and the tangle of cables on the desk. What if he went with a sax instead of the bassoon?

  The orchestration was complicated enough already, getting real expensive. Adding a sax player wouldn’t encourage penurious small-town orchestras to play the finished work.

  Dammit, Ravel had found the effect he wanted! So had Debussy, and Griffes. If a bunch of early-twentieth-century Frenchmen and a sickly American could create the sound he needed, why couldn’t an experienced academic from New Orleans?

  Maybe he’d subconsciously avoided use of the saxophone all along because the last thing he wanted was any jazz overtones. Coming from that part of the country, it was something he’d had to fight in his work all his life.

  “Oh, yeah, you’re that composer from New Orleans. Your work must be, has to be, cannot be anything but jazz-oriented. Right?”

  He shook his head even though there was no one present to observe the gesture. Amazing and disgusting how people could generalize. Just because he was from Louisiana, critics and public alike assumed. He had no intention of being the second coming of Louis Gottschalk.

  His work had nothing to do with jazz, everything to do with his Cajun heritage. It would have been much easier to do something simple for a first large-scale orchestral composition. A folk-song suite, perhaps, utilizing the tunes and fiddling he’d grown up listening to in the parish. Some simple orchestrating and he’d have a piece worthy of recording.

  But that wasn’t what had been swimming around inside his head for the past fifteen years. Oh, he’d make use of those tunes, you bet. But as bits and pieces, useful fragments and jumping-off points for the real composition.

  No, his intent, his aim was greater than that. He was striving for nothing less than a synthesis of Cajun folk music with contemporary symphonic tradition. There were minimalist overtones, sure, but plenty of echoes of modern American music in the tradition of everybody from Hanson to Glass. John Vincent’s wonderful symphony had been a particular inspiration to him, perhaps because Vincent had hailed from Alabama instead of Los Angeles or New York.

  He’d thought taking off in the boat for a few weeks would help to break the instrumental logjam in his brain. There were too many distractions in the city, or even out on the Lake or the Gulf. He knew that he needed to get farther away, much farther. Away from the casual camaraderie of the bookstores and the chatter of the University, away from the restaurants and lectures. Too simple to put computer aside and head to the Café du Monde for café au lait and beignets. Too easy to cut the power and spend the night hanging around the Quarter watching the tourists gawk at the locals and vice versa.

  If he was going to make any real progress, if he was going to finish this monster which had taken over his life, he knew he had to go somewhere devoid of entertainment or intellectual intercourse. Since he didn’t have much money, that meant taking the boat out.

  What kept him going was Dorbachevski’s interest in the project. The orchestra’s director had half promised to premiere the piece with the symphony as soon as its composer had it whipped into publishable shape. A performance by the Philharmonic would not only give the composition instant legitimacy, it would be a qualitative leap over what the University orchestra could do.

  Dearborn, the head of the department, had offered him a full professorship on more than one occasion. To the amazement of his colleagues he continued to turn it down, explaining that he preferred the independence conferred by part-time teaching and tutoring. Infrequent but well-paying guest conductorships and occasional TV work kept him afloat, if not in a position to begin collecting Faberge eggs. It was not so much that he favored the life-style of a gypsy academic, he just wanted time to compose.

  Of course, if he couldn’t solve Arcadia, he would have to seriously consider giving Frank Dearborn a call.

  Not to think of that now. Better to remember Dorbachevski’s promise, to think of the completed tone poem filling Symphony Hall with sonorous prosody, its grand finale capped by a cacophonous coda of applause.

  If only the fucking flutes would cooperate.

  So far his tenuous claim to fame consisted of forty-five seconds of music he’d composed for the news department of the local NBC affiliate and the score to a documentary on Louisiana bird life for the Baton Rouge PBS station. If only the documentary had been on oil drilling or chemical refining, he might even have made some real money on it.

  Arcadia was going to be his breakthrough: a symphonic poem utilizing Cajun themes, full of richness and power and hope. He’d put everything from memories of his childhood to all his technical knowledge into it, resisting the temptation to engage in trendy minimalism or shocking atonality. The finished work would be modern yet approachable.

  It would not, however, be heard unless he could solve the bedeviling orchestration. It was as if someone had put a gris-gris on him, yes.

  So he’d stocked his catamaran, cranked up the winches, loosened up the roller furling, and set sail south. No sampling the tawdry temptations of Cozumel or Cancun this trip. They were too redolent of his hometown. He wanted, needed, to get away from such distractions.

  Only when he’d reached Lighthouse Reef did he select a mooring inside the lagoon and drop anchor. No one was likely to disturb him there for weeks. Only passing boats visited this place, sixty miles off the coast of sweltering, unglamorous Belize. Shoot, there were only a hundred and sixty thousand people in the whole country. More than half spoke English, which made it easy for him to replenish his supplies during his intermittent forays into Belize City or Monkey Town.

  He was able to anchor in one place, taking the occasional break from the burden of composing by snorkeling in the warm waters of the enormous lagoon. The nearby islets were blessedly free of mosquitoes, though small biting flies did their best to fill the ecological niche their slimmer cousins had abdicated.

  The weather remained good and as hoped, his work had taken a quantum leap forward. But now he was stuck, mired in the scherzo which should have been among the easiest parts to finish.

  He resisted the urge to skip ahead to the allegro by covering his uncertainty with timpani. Better to junk the whole ten pages, and that he refused to do. Why couldn’t he be like Strauss or Mozart, effortlessly cranking out masterwork after masterwork, the music already fully orchestrated in his head? Why couldn’t counterpoint come naturally to him, instead of requiring such rigorous mental application?
/>   If he was ever going to command more than a line in Baker’s or Grove, he was going to have to complete something really worthwhile. That he was in the books at all, right between Dukelsky and Dulcken, was a triumph of sorts. But he wanted more from the compilers. He wanted admiration, he wanted commentary. He wanted footnotes.

  Dulac, William L.: born Slidell, Louisiana, 19… well, not too many years ago. Marital status—single (but not forever, hopefully). Major works—two string quartets, assorted songs, music for television, the overture Jambalaya.

  He smiled at that, memories of his first real success. Who but a Cajun would have had the audacity to compose a work of twelve minutes’ duration for full symphony orchestra inspired entirely by food?

  He read on in his thoughts: various minor works…

  Arcadia would change that. In its present form the symphonic poem was fifty minutes long. Let them try to ignore him after Arcadia… if he could ever finish the damn thing.

  Lips tight, he glared at the keyboard as his fingers manipulated the keys. The bassoon vanished, kicked aside by a newly installed saxophone.

  Go with your instincts, his teachers had always told him. Don’t let technical proficiency and expertise get in the way of what feels right.

  He leaned back and contemplated. By damn, it even looked better up there on the screen than that stupid bassoon. He hit enter, listened to the CD-ROM track, then ordered playback. Instant synthesized orchestra replied through the speakers.

  There it was, sensuous and mournful: daybreak fog the sun had yet to burn off the swamp. Spanish moss hung limp and damp from the arms of the cypress just as the sound of the sax clung to the trills of the flutes. Much better, he told himself. Much better. If he could just get through the scherzo, the allegro would be a breeze: all brass and bass and supple supportive strings.

  Smiling with satisfaction he swiveled in his chair to find himself staring at something that had to bend double to peer through the passageway leading to the main cabin.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  It was very tall and covered in short gray fur. Wide, dark eyes with vertical pupils stared back at him from either side of a triangular, protruding snout at the end of which whiskers and a black nose twitched ceaselessly. The one visible four-fingered hand was huge but small-boned. A small rectangular device hung from a necklace or strap, and a gold button was fitted inside one ear. Other equipment was attached to a thin belt above the hips.

  A gaping Will thought he could make out a second face crowding close behind the first, and beyond it a hint of a giant bird with a crest of brilliantly hued feathers. It gazed back at him with the same intelligent interest as its hairy companion.

  No one moved until the creature in the back squeezed through the opening and past the others. As it approached the composer its lips drew back, revealing grayish gums and rows of sharp, pointed teeth. It looked powerful and vicious and when it reached for him, Will instinctively knocked the menacing arm aside. He struck quickly and without thinking.

  To his surprise the creature let out an incongruously high-pitched yelp and stumbled backward, straightening convulsively and banging its head against the cabin ceiling. It clutched at the wrist Will had swatted.

  Though shocked, Caldaq reacted swiftly. He drew his sidearm and aimed it at the native. Behind him he heard the Wais gasp softly. He ignored it. Unexpected circumstances called for unprecedented reactions. The native’s response confirmed the correctness of the action.

  It looked first at him, then at the sidearm, and stopped moving, correctly interpreting the device’s function. Experience had demonstrated that even very primitive peoples understood that something pointed at their midsections should be regarded with caution.

  Dropahc retreated to the large central cabin and sat down on the floor, grimacing in pain and holding onto his right wrist. Caldaq motioned with his sidearm for the native to follow. It did so, noting as it complied the presence of the Wais and the two other Massood. There was ample room in the cabin between the two hulls for everyone.

  When standing, the native was slightly taller than the Wais, taller than any Weave sentients save the Massood and the Chirinaldo. Its face was even flatter than that of a S’van.

  “I think it is broken, Captain.” Dropahc looked up, mucus dripping from his snout. “Did you see how quickly it moved?”

  “I saw.” Caldaq did not take his eyes from the native. He couldn’t conceive of killing it, but neither would he allow it to injure any more of his people. He could not understand the violence of its reaction to Dropahc’s friendly approach.

  “Perhaps this is an unnaturally belligerent individual,” the Wais suggested shakily, “and that is why it has been isolated from others of its kind.”

  “The music itself is belligerent,” said Dropahc.

  Caldaq glanced briefly at the injured soldier. “Get outside. You cannot do any good in here and if there is further trouble you will only be in the way.”

  Lips quivering, Dropahc signed affirmation and exited.

  The four remaining crewmembers confronted the native, which stared back. The Wais remained in the background. If it came to a fight, Caldaq knew she would be useless.

  “If it makes a move toward any of you,” he murmured, “shoot it.” He ignored the shocked looks of his subordinates. “We will search elsewhere for a more tractable specimen. We do not know what these things are capable of and I will not have anyone else hurt.”

  The native had backed up against the large wheel device. It watched Caldaq as he spoke, understanding nothing of what was being said in its presence.

  “I did not see.” The Wais regarded the specimen out of soft, limpid eyes. “You say that Dropahc attempted to extend greetings and it simply struck and injured him without warning?”

  “If it spoke first I did not hear,” said Caldaq. “Nor did I see its mouth move.”

  “Surely it is not,” muttered one of the other Massood soldiers, “like the Amplitur?”

  “It reacted physically, so I would think not. We have an aberration here and we must find a way of dealing with it.”

  “To strike out like that without first attempting to ascertain what was wanted of it, to do actual physical damage…” Caldaq saw that the sensitive Wais was in danger of going into shock. To forestall that he spoke sharply to her.

  “Find out what it wants.”

  The glaze vanished from the ornithorp’s eyes. She signed a response, once more a fully functioning member of his crew. As she stepped hesitantly forward, Caldaq made certain his own translator was functioning.

  The Wais found herself switching smoothly from fluent Massood to the chosen native language. It resembled Turlog and S’van as much as anything else.

  “Please relax. We mean you no harm.”

  Will’s head jerked around and he gaped at the tall bird-thing. It had spoken to him in perfect, unaccented American English. Nevertheless, it was hard to concentrate on what it was saying due to the presence of the three tall, toothy monsters who had surrounded him. Each was pointing something short and machined in his direction. They might be wands of peace, or devices for sampling the atmosphere or measuring his body temperature, but he didn’t think so.

  Nor was he anxious to find out. He realized that the alien which had left holding its wrist had been injured and that he was responsible. But he hadn’t struck out that hard. It had only been his intention to brush the groping paw aside. Clearly he’d done more than that.

  What more natural, then, than for these creatures to treat him as hostile? But he wasn’t, he wasn’t hostile at all. How else did they expect him to react, bursting in on him in the middle of the night?

  Where had they come from? His imagination was working overtime. They smelled of the lagoon but none of them looked built for an aquatic life-style. They were not a bunch of his students come all the way to Belize to play some incredibly elaborate practical joke on him. Even if they could be human beings inside gray fur sui
ts, there was no room for anyone inside that bird body, not even a child.

  He wondered why it was the only one speaking. It was downright voluble, talking to calm and reassure him. All of which was dependent on him believing what was happening. Which he was starting to do. He just didn’t want to. He found himself edging back toward the doorway which led to the portside hull.

  “This is crazy,” he mumbled aloud.

  “Careful,” said Caldaq. “It is moving.” He raised his sidearm slightly, trying to decide which part of the native body would be most receptive to a nonlethal charge.

  Abruptly, the creature changed direction and dove through the passageway that led into the other hull. It executed the maneuver with incredible speed, too rapidly for any of the soldiers to react.

  “Watch out!” Wouldea shouted. “It is trying to get away!” Despite their concern, no one fired.

  Instead they attempted to follow, greatly encumbered by their height. The Wais glided along behind, frantically issuing a stream of what should have been reassuring words in the local tongue. When these had no effect it switched desperately to a second native language, then a third.

  “Why are you running? There is nothing wrong. No problema aqui, seňor. Was ist mit ihnen los?”

  Will went up fast through the hatch, shutting it behind him and looking around wildly. The foredeck was deserted. He stepped out on the trampoline suspended between the twin bows. If he could make it to Goff Cay and hide out there till morning, he might be able to signal his distress to the single elderly government employee stationed at Half Moon Cay. Half Moon was a bird sanctuary, and tourist boats sometimes put in there.

  Not that anyone would believe his tale of being accosted in the middle of the night by four creatures with bodies like gibbons and faces like giant rats who let a glamorized emu do all their talking for them, but he didn’t much care about that. All he wanted was to put distance between himself and his nightmare.