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Prelude

The dark-haired spacer opened his mind to the musical instrument.  Black and white patterns came alive at his bidding, dancing off the dark gray jumpsuit and forming a long, thin piano-board.  Two pedals unwrapped around his legs and hovered near his feet.  Long fingers expertly touched the bendable keys.  A melody of haunting loss entered the small cabin of the large space vessel.  Rian opened his mouth and sang a song to match.

The star was distant, colored red

Up close, it’s rusted sands instead.

The lands were desert, cold as ice,

But in the canyons, warm and nice.

 

It’s said that those first few who came,

They never had the will to tame

That brutal warrior god of ours.

No man has conquered brooding Mars.

 

The swirling sandstorms covered all,

An angry god’s abrasive brawl,

Turning scientific men,

To wide-eyed corpses buried in.

 

But then came Earth-born companies,

Backed with stock-exchanging fees;

They built their mining ore machines,

That dug beneath those warm ravines.

 

They planted gene-spliced aqua trees,

To terraform the gritty breeze.

They built grand cityscapes and trains,

That brightened nights with flashing lights,

Glimmering across those rocky plains.

 

The star was distant, colored red

Up close it’s magnet roads instead.

The terra air was cool and nice,

Within the ground was ore’s sweet vice.

 

It’s said that many spacers came

To test their wills and stake their claim.

Across the Martian rocky scars;

Humanity once conquered Mars!

 

The mighty sandstorms lessened then. 

As generations lived and died,

The weaker gravity affected them,

Growing them so tall and wide.

 

A different storm came,

The soul was weighed.

To trade or to fight over ore,

What’s right was soon ignored.

 

Those giant Martian Men,

In their overgrown bodies of sin.

How their science fell, to the gods of the old.

Thus, ending tyranny’s hold.

 

The star was distant, colored red

Up close, it’s broken lands instead.

The Martian ways were hardly nice,

Trapped in hearts of hardened ice.

 

It seems that far too many came,

Daring as they must to tame.

That brutal warrior god of ours.

Will man ever conquer Mars?

 

A swirling virus covered all,

From Ares’ tribe whose children fall,

Burning scientific men

To wide-eyed corpses, in the sand.

 

And, oh, the day the giants fled

Old Mars wasn’t much the same.

The followers of gods they came

Killing all of Ares’ children,

Judgment for their greatest shame.

 

The star is distant, colored red.

Up close, it’s holy lands instead.

The new, red men have blinded eyes,

Within a heart of hardened lies.

 

The swirling sandstorms cover all

An angry god’s abrasive brawl

Neglect has changed this land of ours,

Humanity is conquered,

By the holy gods, of brooding, angry Mars.

Rian struck the final synthetic key.  Focused thoughts transformed the frequency of the sound waves.  Gently, his left foot tapped the floating volume pedal, sinking toes into it until the sorrowful chord melted away.  Only distant harmonics were heard; distant harmonics and Rian’s voice that died with it.

Silence as still as the void of space.

The musician exhaled.  His audience of two clapped with energetic hands.  The 11-year-old girl was loudest of all.  A plastic cat floated on her shoulders in the zero gravity of the ship, doing its best to mimic her with robotic paws.

The other patron, a stocky, copper-haired spacer, spoke with a wide grin, “Wonderfully played, Rian!”

“I can always count on Patrik for flattery,” Rian replied while fitting his feet into the handles of the wall.  He gave a half-hazard bow, releasing tiny droplets of perspiration in the weightless air.  A swoosh of dark hair followed his head back up, exaggerating the movement.  He focused brown eyes on Patrik’s oldest daughter.

“And what did you think?”

Talora wrinkled the tip of her freckle-crested nose and said, “Your voice cracks too much.”

Rian laughed at this, instructing the thin piano pedals with his mind.  They dutifully folded onto his pant legs.  “I fear your daughter is more honest, Patrik.  I can write and play a song; I just can’t sing it.”

Patrik pushed off the wall and flew towards the floating piano-board, touching one of its keys.  His face held a mischievous glint, “My daughter’s a bit stuffy.  You sing it fine.”

Talora lunged at her dad then, lavender hair trailing behind in wavy strands like Halley’s comet.  He caught her in mid-flight, moving backwards from the momentum, hitting the piano keys in an off-chord embrace.

Rian escaped to the far wall and watched in mild amusement.  Patrik lost the wrestling match and was stuck in zero G, at the mercy of his daughter.  She wedged herself against the wall and gave her dad a shove.  The copper-haired spacer flew into Rian, and all three fell into a fit of laughter.

Rian had met Patrik’s family at one of Jupiter’s Lagrange point stations.  He had traveled far in their ship since then, working as an art and music tutor for Talora and her sisters Saran and Ferna.  Little boy Jun was still too young to learn anything other than how to use a simple computer.

Talora had grown much since then.  She would soon be reaching her Jupiter Year of 11.8 Earth years old.  This meant that she would become a woman.  Her long, lavender strands of hair would have to be cut.  It will be a shame, thought Rian.  Though the length was impractical for space travel, it reminded him of Old Earth.

She did not notice his scrutiny of her hair.  Her eyes were already closed to the outside world.  She had turned on the iNode attached to her hair braid, losing herself to a lucid dream.

~end of sample~

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