Cacophony of the Spheres

by Jeff Haas

Table of Contents
Part 1 appears
in this issue.

conclusion

He picked up his glass and examined its contents. “I have only one rule at this bar: you must drink while you’re on duty.” He looked out the window at the maelstrom. “Here’s to nothing!”

We clinked glasses again and sipped our drinks.

“Actually, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about — nothing.”

He smiled. “And that’s pretty much all I know anymore — nothing. I can talk about nothing till the cows come home. Did you get a good look at the chaotic soup?”

“How could I avoid it?”

“Well, you can’t, and neither can those disbelievers back on Earth. I mean, I can understand them not taking my word for it, but you can see the evidence for yourself. If this space station wasn’t programmed to move away from the chaos, we’d all become part of the chaos ourselves.”

“Shouldn’t we warn them?” I said.

Bob laughed loud and long. “My dear boy, what do you think I’ve been trying to do for the past 25 years? Not only did I perform my calculations, but once I got out here I transmitted thousands of pictures back to them for years. But they ignored me, so I finally cut the umbilical cord to Mother Earth. I’m afraid your friends back there are in denial.”

“Denial?”

“They’re swimming in it. Want to hear my theory?”

I could tell that was a rhetorical question.

“You see, individual denial is the way one person deals with an unpleasant reality. Say a wife suspects her husband of infidelity. Well, the easiest thing for her to do psychologically is to pretend it never happened. That’s individual denial, and it might work up until the point she can no longer deny it. Perhaps he comes home with lipstick on his collar, or she catches him in bed with the other woman.

“But collective denial is even more insidious. That’s where an entire group of people chooses not to believe an unpleasant reality. The most famous example is Nazi Germany in the mid-20th century. That regime was so successful at compartmentalizing its evil that they convinced an entire nation to believe in a mass fiction. Not only did they deny their culpability in genocide on a massive scale, but they actually believed that they were a good Christian nation.

“But what we have here is collective denial on a planetary scale. An entire species is in denial. The grim reality is that the universe is collapsing and it will implode in a Big Crunch in seven years. All matter will be transformed and all beings — including all human beings — will die. That’s an undeniable fact, but it’s such an unpleasant reality that no one back on Earth believes it.”

He took another sip.

“Maybe I could help you get your message across,” I said. “We could use this recording to warn them.”

“What’s the point? A fact is a fact regardless of who accepts it. Their denial — and even my theory about their denial — won’t make any difference in the long run. In fact, maybe it’s better for them if they remain in denial. At least that way they’ll lead relatively happy lives right up until the end. Why should they dwell on it? It certainly hasn’t helped me much.”

Patrons started filtering into the bar.

“And you thought I was just another run-of-the-mill Nobel prizewinning mathematician. Actually, being a bartender has turned me into more of a psychologist. I guess it’s a hazard of the profession.”

He gazed out into the room.

“But not all human beings are in denial. See those drunks in the corner?” He pointed to the space traders I passed as I entered the bar. “Now there’s a group of true believers.”

The lead drunk, seeing Bob point in his direction, raised his bottle in a toast and called out in an ersatz Irish brogue, “The center kenna hold!”

Bob downed his drink and manufactured another. I was still nursing mine.

“So, your paper sent you here to find out about the alien refugee problem. Well, here’s the honest-to-God truth.”

He leaned over into the recorder.

“We’re all refugees in this universe.”

* * *

Happy hour was now in full swing. Bob activated three blonde android waitresses who helped out at the tables while he manned the bar.

Aliens forcibly expatriated from nearby galaxies because of the maelstrom entered the bar to drink their troubles away. There were Kormans from NGC 3310 and Salatos from ESO0418-008. Several more Parmavians, who originally came from UGC06471-2, joined the chortling chorus in the corner.

The humans from the Milky Way were mostly deep space traders like the ones Bob had pointed out to me earlier. Other than their outward appearance, the big difference between the humans and the aliens was that the humans still had a galaxy to call home, at least for the moment. That simple fact had engendered quite a bit of resentment against the space traders, and Bob had had to break up a number of fights lately.

Now that the aliens no longer had home planets — or home galaxies for that matter — the survivors lived in their spaceships or on the few remaining habitable planets nearby. Many were just passing through trying to escape the maelstrom, but they all came to drink at the bar because there was nothing better to do. They were lost souls whose purpose had been suddenly and violently ripped away from them. Many of their species had died in the maelstrom, and the remaining aliens formed a cornucopia of the homeless. As more of them entered the bar, there was a palpable feeling of not-so-quiet desperation. It was only then that I fully understood the magnitude of the problem, and I was afraid.

“Misery loves company,” Bob said, a wide grin on his face. “And it’s good for business, too.”

Just then a couple of seven-foot-tall hairy aliens squeezed through the double doors and headed toward the bar. The shorter one, presumably the female, wore a red amulet hanging from her neck.

“Bearkins,” Bob said. “Be careful, they can be dangerous.”

He stored the nanobox under the bar as they approached.

Naturally, they sat down right next to me, making the triangular seats squeak horribly under the weight. The big one unceremoniously pushed my recorder out of the way and slammed his fist down on the bar.

“Harugga!” he said.

“Harugga it is!” Bob replied. He pulled down a large bottle of blue liquid and poured them two tall glasses. The big one, apparently the male, quaffed it in one swig and slammed it down on the bar.

“Harugga!” he repeated. Quite the conversationalist. Bob filled the Big One’s glass and he promptly downed it again. Then he said “Anklogo!” to his girlfriend and got up.

Bob whispered to me, “Anklogo means bathroom. He could be gone for quite a while.”

“Good,” I said. Maybe now I could continue the interview. But Bob had another idea. He started talking to the female in the Bearkin language, and soon he was engaged in an intimate conversation. Apparently, they knew each other quite well, perhaps too well. I sat there sipping my drink and listening to their guttural yearnings, feeling increasingly like a fifth wheel.

After several more minutes of this, Bob finally remembered that I was alive. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I forgot to introduce you. This is Princess Amal of the Bearkin Empire. Amal is the daughter of the king of the Bearkins.”

She nodded and I shook her hairy paw. Exactly what Bob saw in the Bearkin female I’ll never know. She was almost seven feet tall, heavy set, and covered with brown fur. But I have to admit that she did have beautiful brown eyes and a warm handshake.

“Hu-man,” she said in broken English. I wasn’t sure if I should take that as a compliment, an insult, or a simple statement of fact.

To Bob I said, “Was that her father who went to the bathroom?”

“Um, no,” he said. “Her father died in the maelstrom. That was her brokundi.”

“What’s that?”

“Husband.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling more uncomfortable by the minute.

Bob politely changed the subject. “The Bearkins are from a distant galaxy. We don’t even have a number for it. A few of them escaped from their home planet before it was destroyed. But Amal’s father refused to leave, and many of his subjects stayed behind with him. Amal had a falling out with her father over it.”

“And who’s her husband?” I asked, trying to remind Bob of his own advice about the Bearkins.

“You worry too much, Tim.”

* * *

About twenty minutes later the Big One returned from the bathroom. Unfortunately, Bob and Amal had forgotten all about him in their amorous reverie. Bob was still holding Amal’s hand and gazing into her eyes, whispering sweet nothings into her big hairy ear.

“Bob,” I said. “Bob.”

He finally looked up and released Amal’s hand, one nanosecond too late.

The Big One saw them together and had what can only be described as a conniption fit. He beat his hairy chest with his fists and roared “Kontanka!” at the top of his lungs. Then he stomped over to Amal and promptly threw her onto the floor, standing over her menacingly.

Everyone in the bar stopped what they were doing and looked on in amazement.

In an instant, Bob lunged over the bar and onto the Big One’s back, locking his arms around the Bearkin’s massive chest. Amal got up and hid behind me at the bar. To the Bearkin, Bob must’ve seemed like an annoying mosquito. But Bob held on for dear life and the Big One was unable to shake him.

Amal looked at me pleadingly with those big brown eyes and said “Death.” I took that to mean Bob’s death and soon, so I picked up the blue bottle and headed for the middle of the fracas.

A crowd of humans and aliens started to congregate around the fighters, cheering on one or the other. The Big One tried to pull Bob’s hands apart, but Bob wouldn’t let go, so he started swinging Bob around in a circle like a marionette, desperately trying to shake him loose. Finally, Bob lost his grip and sailed into the bar, smashing his right shoulder. He huddled at the base of the bar waiting for the inevitable.

The Big One prepared for the kill by roaring “Kontanka!” which gave me the moment I was waiting for. I raised the blue bottle behind him and smashed it down into the back of his head, breaking the bottle and splashing sticky blue liquid over everything. The Big One teetered momentarily, then fell back into me, crushing me to the floor. Luckily, he was unconscious.

* * *

Bob and I dragged the Big One back to Bob’s private apartment, a three-room efficiency behind the bar with a lovely view of the maelstrom. We took him into the bedroom and tied him down to the king-size bed, which could barely contain his seven-foot frame.

Amal seemed relieved after she checked her burly husband’s pulse.

“I’m sorry I got you involved in this,” Bob said as he sat down next to Amal on the edge of the bed.

“That’s all right,” I said. “I seem to have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“These days everyone’s in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said, looking out at the maelstrom and taking Amal’s hand. “I guess I owe you an explanation. Amal and I have been planning our escape for some time now, but I guess we’ve just been waiting for the right moment. It looks like the right moment finally found us.”

“Escape? To where?”

“Into the maelstrom.”

“What?”

Bob unbuttoned his shirt and pulled out an amulet that matched the one around Amal’s neck.

“Know what these are?”

I shook my head no.

“They’re transcenders. The Beechers left them behind when they abandoned their bodies three hundred years ago. I found them hidden in the space station when I first moved in.”

He took a deep breath.

“Let me be perfectly frank with you, Tim. Amal and I will never be able to consummate our relationship. Bearkins and humans just don’t fit together, if you know what I mean.”

“You mean you never —”

“Nope, we never.”

“Then what the hell was that fight all about?”

“My dear boy, that Bearkin wasn’t jealous of us having sex, he was jealous of us having love.”

I knew what he meant. As unusual as their relationship was, I could tell right away that Bob and Amal were deeply in love, and I was actually a little jealous myself. I decided to tell Bob all about my problems with Laura.

When I was done, he said, “If you want your bartender’s advice, you need to apologize to that girl right away, the sooner the better. The universe is a perilous enough place without someone to love. Amal and I never planned to fall in love, but some things are just beyond your control. Anyway, we’ll never be able to have sex, but these transcenders give us another option.”

“You mean you’re going to —”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

“But that’s crazy. How can you be sure they’ll work on humans... or Bearkins, for that matter?”

“There’s only one way to find out. We believe that if we die in the proximity of this technology, our souls will transcend the material universe. It worked for the Beechers, and it’ll work for us. You know, Tim, when I was a mathematician I believed that physical reality was the only reality there was. But since I found these amulets — and since I fell in love with Amal — I’ve come to believe in a higher state of consciousness, something beyond mere physical reality. Call it soul, call it God, call it the collective unconscious — whatever you call it, Amal and I believe that we can transcend our physical bodies and live together on a higher plane.”

“But that’s suicide. If there really is a God, wouldn’t He want you to die naturally?”

“Nature as we know it is coming to an end, Tim,” he said, pointing to the maelstrom. “Besides, I don’t think it’s an accident that I found these amulets. Amal and I have known for quite some time what we were supposed to do, but I guess we’ve just been too afraid to go through with it. Until now.”

* * *

Three hours later — after we dumped the Big One in his shuttle and set it on autopilot, and after I ran out of all logical objections to Bob and Amal’s master plan — we stood at the entrance to Bob’s personal shuttle and said goodbye. I had agreed to manage the bar for a few days before returning home to Earth.

“I reprogrammed the android waitresses to create drinks using the nanobox,” Bob said. “But you might want to test it out a few times before letting them use it.”

“I will,” I said.

“And don’t worry about the Bearkin. He never saw who hit him, so if he comes back you can just say that Amal did it.”

“Bob, we’ve been over this already.”

“Sorry,” he said. Then he suddenly gave me a big hug. “Thanks for saving my life, Tim.” His eyes welled up as he looked around one last time. “I’m sure going to miss this place.”

Then he grabbed Amal’s hand and they walked together into the shuttle, the door closing tightly behind them.

I walked over to a window and watched as the tiny shuttle undocked and headed straight for the maelstrom. There was a single bright flash of light, and then they were gone.

Or were they?

* * *

The next day I re-established transceiver communications with Earth and sent the Verisim recording to my editor. But, just as Bob had predicted, my editor didn’t believe a word of it and refused to distribute the vid. Not only that, he ordered me to return to Earth immediately, most likely so he could fire me as soon as I hit terra firma. For that very reason I decided to extend my stay in deep space indefinitely.

Then I sent a big fat apology to Laura, telling her that I was ready to make a commitment and promising that I’d try to stay well-grounded in reality from now on. I spent several nervous hours at the transceiver waiting for her response, but when it finally arrived she said that she still loved me, and that she forgave me. I immediately invited her out to see me at Borderline Bob’s, and she booked passage on the very next shuttle. Things were definitely looking up.

Later that day, as I was helping the androids prepare for happy hour, I pulled the nanobox out from under the bar and opened it up to clean it. Inside was a package labeled “For Tim and Laura.” I opened the package and found two amulets and a note that read:

“It’s better to transcend with the one you love.”

I looked out at the maelstrom and smiled, certain that I saw two stars shining just a little bit brighter than the rest.