Veteran Squid readers will be overjoyed to see the author’s name on this one… yup, it’s former featured author Kurt Kunz. If you’re new to the reef, scroll on back through the issues for more of Kurt. Along the way, you’ll find not only two stories, but also artwork and an interview. Hold on, hold on… read this one first, you fools. And, speaking of this one, “The Silent Song” is an outstanding tale of gritty sci-fi… perfect beach reading!

“The Silent Song”
by Kurt Kunz

Beneath the fading ember of a dying sun, a world hung suspended in the frozen grip of winter. This was not, however, a natural winter of passing seasons, no temporary shifting in the balance between heat and cold; this winter had lasted for millennia as the sun failed, until the landscape became little more than a desolate waste of frozen plains of ice, spotted in places by stands of ironleaf trees. The purple-hued sky was shrouded in perpetual night; even when the sun was at its highest, it provided little in the way of warmth or light. Life endured here, to a degree, yet it was slowly and surely being choked off by the dying solar system.

#

Lukas heaved the satchel onto his broad back as he trudged across the slick expanse of ice and snow. The howling wind, uninhibited by hills or trees on this plain, cut like a knife, even through the inches of his padded coat. Pausing for a second to catch his breath, he looked up at the sky through the photosensitive goggles he wore on nights like these, when the wind shrieked and the light fled. It appeared that a storm was brewing, and he wanted to get to the shelter before it struck. As the seasons changed, fierce storms swept the planet, generating winds in excess of one hundred miles per hour. Razor shards of ice sent flying by the gusts could tear apart unprotected flesh in seconds.

Lukas was a middle-aged man, strong and hard from years of living off the land. His weatherworn, leathery face was frozen in a perpetual frown, though whether it was a result of the cold or for some other reason was unclear. Living alone, he had long ago given up the basics of hygiene as futile, and his face was now covered by a grizzled beard. He had lost some excess weight since the days, long past, he had arrived on the planet - but that was a time he could hardly remember now, even if he decided he wanted to. For now he lived simply, spending his time trying merely to survive rather than worrying about inconsequential matters. Sometimes, in the deepest dark of the winter – when only the wan light of the stars penetrated the gloom, and any creature venturing outdoors would be frozen solid in a matter of minutes – sometimes, huddled in his shelter, he spent his time writing poetry and song. He sang mostly to the stars or the ice, but sometimes he sang of other times and other people, and he remembered.

A sudden blast of arctic air set Lukas off balance on the slick ice, and he was sent skidding. Striking the ice hard on his side, his breath was blasted from his body in a puff of hot steam. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he struggled to his feet, favoring his arm. It felt sore and bruised, but fortunately it did not feel broken. Lukas tightened the straps on his facemask and bowed into the wind.

In the distance he could see the telltale outline of his shelter; the large, snow-covered mound was an obvious anomaly in the otherwise smooth landscape. He guessed that would make it in an hour or less. He just hoped that he would make it in time.

Behind him his footsteps faded in the newly fallen snow.

#

By this point in time, mankind had spent nearly all available natural resources and was forced to venture forth into space merely to survive. Vast numbers of explorers were sent out to find promising sites – either suitable for habitation or holding natural fuels and minerals. Most of these pioneers came back empty handed or were never seen again. But those few who succeeded and found something truly useful – they were viewed as heroes and rewarded beyond their wildest dreams.

As the great explorations went on, more and more planets came to be settled and worked dry for their resources. Human civilization had destroyed what self-sufficiency its home once had, and was rapidly spinning out of control. Its waste in the past had left it without the capabilities to sustain itself for any appreciable amount of time, and it was struggling to merely maintain its existence. And all the while, the consumers continued to breed and squander what little they had.

It was on one of these resource planets – a small, nondescript world on the outer fringes of explored space – that Lukas was born to a working-class family. The planet was occupied for its rich iron deposits; nearly all of its inhabitants lived as miners, including Lukas’ family. He spent most of his childhood helping his father in the mines and attending the local school. The educational facility was in a fairly poor state of affairs, located as it was on a relatively unimportant world, but he studied and worked diligently, and graduated at the top of his class, with a degree in space exploration.

The first chance he got, he shipped out with a passing group of explorers. They traveled for several months until they came to a small solar system, with several unremarkable planets whirling around an F3-class sun. Scans picked up nothing of interest. Nothing habitable, negligible resources. The rest of the crew was preparing to move on, but he stopped them. He never would be able to tell just what made him choose that ball of rock to explore. From orbit it appeared to be nothing more than a pocked and cratered pseudo-moon, and most of the other explorers had already passed it by. For some reason, however, like a man compelled, he convinced the crew to land and investigate.

They first found it while taking a soil sample. The machinery plunged into the earth but did not strike the bedrock. Like a gush of earth’s blood, the oil burst from the ground in a geyser, slowly falling in great droplets in the low gravity. The explorers laughed as the black gold stained their outstretched hands.

The core of the planet, it turned out, was largely filled by oil – that oldest and most precious of man’s resources. This was surprising, as it suggested that the now lifeless ball of rock once flourished with life. Perhaps whole civilizations had once existed here, before the ravages of time had reduced everything to nothingness. But these thoughts did not matter to any but the dreamers and the poets, and the world was soon drained, becoming lifeless and dull once again.

In an instant, Lukas became one of the galaxy’s richest men, and he used his fortune to return with his family to Earth, original home and capital of the Terran Empire. He lived happily for a time. He met a pretty girl named Angela, and raised a family of his own.

#

His recent harvest had been good, for beneath the unyielding ice could be found various species of fungi. There, growing in massive colonies stretching for miles beneath the surface, they thrived off the moisture and the intrinsic heat of the land. They made a decent meal if one could penetrate the ice. This was how Lukas survived - by cutting his way through the crust with high-powered tools, supplementing his meals with melted ice and the occasional trapped animal. It was not high style, but he was alive.

The rusted and dented door to his shelter swung heavily inward on its hinges as Lukas stood unsteadily in the doorway. He tossed his bag of fungi onto the table with a plop and struggled to close the door against the wind. The tempest had begun to gather in power, and already lightning eerily lit the landscape. The door was difficult to move on its own, and with the wind fighting Lukas’ efforts, it became nigh-impossible. His muscles straining, he finally managed to slam the door shut. He limped over and activated the fusion generator, recharging his tools and starting the heating cycle.

The shelter was, in fact, a ship – the very same one that he had arrived in ten years ago. He never truly left the ship; although he had ranged for as far as the eye could see, he always returned to the shelter when the temperatures began to fall. It was far too cold for a single man to survive anywhere else at night. The ship was not very spacious, but it had electricity and heat. And most importantly, it was home.

As the generator began to hum, Lukas struggled to drag a chair over. His day’s work finally done, he collapsed heavily into the seat and sighed deeply. For a decade he had lived here, barely meeting the barest requirements of survival. It was a hollow existence – he always knew that – but he could never return to his old life. And, in many ways, his previous world was even emptier than his current home. He quickly purged such thoughts from his mind, and reached for his lute. The air was soon filled with song, but there was noone there to hear it.

#

It was bound to happen eventually; mankind simply could not maintain its state of affairs indefinitely. People could not cooperate forever, and someone would fight for the limited resources sooner or later. So, ten years after Lukas had established his home on Earth, war erupted in all sections of the Terran Empire. He was off-planet at the time, traveling on a business trip to nearby Mars in his personal starship. The news broadcast reached him just as he was passing the point of no return. On the shipboard screens he watched, open-mouthed with horror, as the proto-reactive bombs destroyed 95% of the landmass of Earth. His family, living in such a prime target as New York, never stood a chance. In an instant, Lukas had lost everything he had struggled for, protected, and loved.

Involuntarily, he turned his smarting eyes downward. He had nothing left – no home but his ship, no friends but the onboard computer. As the bombs destroyed his world, his very existence was terminated. It was as if his entire life leading to that moment ceased to exist – nothing remained of his accomplishments but his memories.

When he finally gathered the courage to look up again, he realized that he had no destination either; Mars had been nearly obliterated by the Terran counterattack. No major cities remained on the red planet. A millennium of human endeavors to establish itself on other planets had instantly become a wasted effort.

As he felt his life reeling out of control, Lukas reached, trembling, for the control panel. Turning the dial, he set course in a random direction and activated the engines to their maximum power. As the ship accelerated, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he remembered no more.

#

As the ship ran out of fuel, he spent his time passing in and out of consciousness. Delusional, he imagined that he saw his family beckoning for him to join them. He desperately wanted to, but he knew that it was a choice he would never be able to consciously make. He could never forgive himself, and he felt that they would never be able to either.

As the weeks passed, his ship continued to speed out beyond the known borders of space. Beyond the solar system, beyond his birthplace, beyond the outer planets, and finally, breaking out of the core entirely. He continued to drift through the void, spending his time wandering the ship in a daze. By the time the ship’s fusion reactor broke down, he was far beyond the farthest reaches that man had ever traveled, but no-one would be there to see.

The odds of survival at this point were swiftly approaching zero. He took his last rations and settled down for a long, silent death. He was content that he would soon be joining his family on the other side.

He was awoken some time later by a violent impact that sent him hurtling to the ceiling of his ship. Outside the frosted portholes, snow was falling on a frozen plain. Far beyond, giant trees stood. He had survived. How he was taken in by the gravitational field of a lone planet flying around a dying sun is unknown. Much more amazing was the fact that this planet was capable of supporting life. He was saved, though he had no desire to be. His ship was incapable of liftoff – the main fusion generator had worked itself to a heap of molten slag, but the smaller, backup generator was still operational. It was much too small to power the ship itself, but it would be enough to keep him warm – he could already feel air on the ship turning cold. He sat down to wait.

#

And ten years later, he was still sitting there, hunched over inside the hull of his ship. Had anything really changed? He could not tell. He continued to linger and weave his songs to fill the silence of eternity; a fading man on a fading world, trying to hold on to the memories.

And when finally, he, too, vanished, who would be there to sing his song? Would it, just like he, suddenly cease to exist? In time, perhaps, nothing at all would remain, except the lonely remnants of his song, echoing forever across the plains of ice. And eventually, they too might fade away, breaking themselves upon a sea of silent oblivions.

What then?

If a tree falls in a forest with no ears to hear, does it make a sound?

I do not know. Perhaps it is insignificant in the broad scope of things. Perhaps. All that is for certain is that somewhere, a song is being sung. And it is beautiful.

END