Silence. Fyodor heard his heart thump. Then twice, thumpthump. Had Nicholas understood?
Suddenly one bassoon played at the top of its register, lovely and haunting at once - like an old New York screenshow before the firebombs.
Now Fyodor heard the French horn, and now a pair of clarinets, ‘A’ and ‘Bass’. His heartbeat slowed.
Fyodor sank into the high back of the leather chair. His fuzzy eyebrows relaxed like sleepy caterpillars, over half-lidded brown eyes. He looked to the two wide displays mounted where the wall curved into a roof (although, he supposed, with neither gravity nor planets for reference, they were all walls).
Now an oboe began to chuckle. Fyodor looked into the shiny camera lens underneath the left display.
Thank you, Nicholas!
Fyodor made sure to carefully form both 'thank' and 'you' with his lips - Nicholas didn't always pick up on 'thanks'. A green LED flashed on the display just as all the woodwinds began trilling together. Nicholas was getting good at understanding him, thought Fyodor.
Fyodor let the eyes drift down to the bay window and steepled his fingers behind his neck. From the cabin at The Phoebus's stern, he could see the long cruiser chassis, a metal finger pointing toward a star-spackled sheet of velvet. The riveted hull sported two dozen solar recyclers, like needleless skeletons of christmas trees, with black solar tiles hanging as ornaments from their branches.
Another Nicholas LED, amber colored, flashed just as the string in The Rite began their first tiptoeing pizzicato. Fyodor looked up.
"Warning: Failed to allocate 4 kW to output, audio network; partition C, container 6."
—
C6… Fyodor's fingers unclasped, gripping his chair's cool leather arms. Container C6 held the bottle of Mr. Noys. Mr. Noys, who made one’s skin crawl…
The audio network…
But no, Fyodor remembered, Mr. Noys was in C5. C6 held… Well, it didn't matter what C6 held. Not critically.
Fyodor blew a soundless sigh. He released his pale, striated grip on the chair. He heard the strings over the speaker chug, chug, chug in a stomping rhythm, with piston-like smacks from the horns. Beautifully invasive music, thought Fyodor. He smiled grimly, wondering if Mr. Noys liked it.
The amber LED continued to glow. It flickered with every violin chug.
Fyodor's smile faded. He turned to the right display. He pulled a retractable Cyrillic keyboard to his chest. He input a command. C6's two-camera visfeed expanded across both displays.
Two black screens. Of course… Fyodor felt foolish. The lights were unpowered everywhere except partition J, which carried botanical specimens. Fyodor would have to visit C6 himself to check the failure.
Probably it was bats again.
White nylon straps hissed back from Fyodor's shoulders and waist as he pressed the seatbelt clasp. Fyodor set his hands on the headrest, rose, twisted midair, and launched through the cabin space. He floated past a wall papered in earth photos, past a magnetized table with a thermos and pressure kettle. His palm stretched for the scanner beside the iris door on the back wall.
What would he do, Fyodor wondered while the scanner read his palm, if the sound had died in Mr. Noys's container?
Start clapping, he thought grimly.
—
A hiss of pistons and steam jets heralded the sliding back of twenty curving metal plates in the circular iris door. A spherical carriage waited beyond. The speakers within shook to their meshes with The Rite's booming timpani.
Before entering, Fyodor reached down and plucked Eurydice from her plushy gravitized cat bed.
Shameful. Why not do your job? Kill pests.
The tabby yowled at the thundering music, but Fyodor palmed the door shut and input 'partition C' into the console before she could escape.
Fyodor wrestled with Eurydice on the journey, two weightless life forms traveling by carriage through a music-shaken shell, in the midst of space's expansive silence.
—
The carriage door opened on a black corridor, with only the status indicators beside each of the sixteen containers shining along one wall, like runway lights.
Eurydice sprang forward, rebounding from wall to wall, soaring nimbly as only a spacer cat can, heedless of the dark.
Fyodor drifted out behind. He turned to the immediate right wall and wrenched on a power relay lever. It slammed up with a reverberating clang.
Two long yellow striplights buzzed on, coating the dark metal corridor in artificial halogen yellow. The redirect of power made the music coming through the speakers softer - only for a second.
Two stains of shadow had lingered above the relay lever when the striplights flushed all other darkness. Now the two stains surged off the wall. They screeched past Fyodor as he ducked, and screeched each time they rebounded down the corridor.
Fyodor lifted his head and straightened his shirt collar. He watched the two stains travel. They moved just as the cat had, but faster, and with less elegance. They rebounded right past Eurydice - the cat only following them with its slitted eyes - before vanishing into a ventilation grate. Fyodor shook his head.
May space taint the bones of the harbormaster who stocked my cruiser with infested crates. And also, with this bat-ignoring cat.
Fyodor twisted midair, curled his knees, then pressed his feet against the bulkhead. The metal touched coldly through his wool socks. Straight as a bullet Fyodor sailed by C1 through C4. He glanced at C5's door. At C6 he thrust a hand out and clasped the stationary rail. He palmed the display beneath the status LED. Steam hissed. C6's metal iris dilated.
—
A box of illuminated silence embraced Fyodor. His heart stuttered. Instinctively he clapped.
The clap made no sharp change to the atmosphere; this was not total silence. Fyodor could still hear The Rite of Spring back in the hall, the timpani pounding primevally in the beginning of The Ritual of the Rival Tribes.
But, the four mesh speaker's in the corners - the sound system within C6 - produced not an atom of sound.
Fyodor breathed deeply and thumped his chest. As long as C5's speakers still blared, everything was fine. And Nicholas would have said if C5 failed.
Fyodor scanned the room. Bolts of Earth silk. Plastic spools. A stack of sodium discs.
Fyodor sniffed. A smell… dead animal. There! He spotted the source beside the far corner speaker. A gray lump. Fyodor's stomach churned, but only once. The smell meant it had died a while ago.
Fyodor turned on the clip-light on his flannel pocket and floated closer.
—
As he neared, Fyodor could see that it was a bat. He saw, also, that the bat had not died naturally. It had died very unnaturally, with signs of Mr. Noys's handling.
Fyodor understood that he had probably just missed this bat while cleaning this container after the last massacre - the last time Noys had escaped, and exterminated a whole damned colony. Fortunately Noys had gotten no farther that time. Fyodor had fixed the speakers remotely, and blasted Noys with sound, out of container C6, back to C5 and his bottle.
Fyodor suddenly recognized an absence of all sound as The Rite reached a pause. Distantly, he heard the special chord which finished The Procession of the Sage - a hushed chord, bleached of color.
—
As the strings resumed Fyodor pulled a plastic bag from his jeans. He scooped the bat without looking at it. He knotted the bag and lobbed it into the corridor.
Then Fyodor pulled each speaker from its casing. He found all of the wires in order, the coating unchewed. He drifted to a black plastic tile against the white tiled wall. He undid the clasp and checked the circuit board behind it. No burst capacitors. Everything intact. He removed the ventilation shaft cover. No guano, just crisp recycled air.
Don't panic. It's one system. It has to be electrical. Nicholas doesn't have bugs.
Fyodor jerked when a long RAOOOO sounded in the room. He turned and frowned at Eurydice. The spacer cat floated placidly just inside the door, staring at him with splayed fur. Fyodor rubbed his forehead.
Don't panic. Don't. Panic…
—
Cold halogens caressed Fyodor as he levitated through the dilated iris and returned to the corridor. The Rite of Spring's pipes, softly introducing The Sacrifice, distantly touched his ears from the speaker beside the carriage.
Fyodor's eyes meandered toward the panel five or six meters along the wall, to that green status LED of C5. Fyodor saw that the bag with the decaying bat had lost its momentum, and now floated beside the palm reader. Fyodor's mind meandered as well, back to last week's massacre, back to all those bats mutilated by Mr. Noys…
Fyodor told himself to stop. That thought train led nowhere.
Fyodor meowed at Eurydice, trying to coax her out of C6. The cat paddled futilely in midair, so Fyodor propelled himself back to retrieve her. He thought meanwhile of what might have caused this speaker malfunction.
If the ship bats had chewed through a wire further up the electric tree, more than one container would have failed. That had happened before; down in partition S, just one week into The Phoebus's starcrossing. Fyodor had installed thumpers in the routing ducts to deter the winged pests.
When Noys had broken out last week, and massacred the bats in C5 and C6, it was because Nicholas failed to restart the sound system. Luckily Fyodor caught it early, and restarted it manually, and drove Noys back to C5 and his bottle. He had ordered Nicholas to sing nonstop for the rest of the voyage.
What if something similar had happened here? What if C5's speakers failed too?
Nicholas gave Eurydice a gentle momentum along the corridor and shut C6's iris.
Stop making elephants of flies. Focus! How can you find the problem?
Fyodor stretched his mind across the cargo ship, thinking… thinking… He thought of the hundred-hundred containers spread across the partitions, like beehive compartments. But instead of honey, each container held a treasure of trade goods. And instead of buzzing, the hive hummed with music, repelling space's pressurized silence. One body of metal flesh and solar blood, surrounded by stillness, singing loud to scare away the terrors, yet now with this worrying microcosm of inner stillness in its chest - like a tumor.
It's a technical bug. Mr. Noys has nothing to do with it. He's tucked in his bottle. Do. Not. Check. His. Room.
—
Fyodor palmed the displayscreen. Interwoven, thermal-resistant steel slid back. Fyodor stared into container C5.
The room was empty… almost. At the room's center was a plinth - like a squat roman pillar, except made of metal lacquered in shiny eggshell paint, and suspended upside-down from the ceiling (based on Fyodor's orientation). Sitting atop (or, hanging from) this metal pillar was a plain jar of clean glass, like a mason jar, except that this was bumpy muteglass, and the lid had a lock like a bank vault. The researchers at the Sverdlovsk Institute's acoustic's department had assured Fyodor that the jar was soundproof, its contents transport-safe. He wished they'd been right.
The jar was empty. At least, it looked empty. There was nothing to see of Mr. Noys.
Fyodor both saw and heard the four speakers in this room rattling with melody through the Mystic Circles of the Young Girls. The music seemed too low, now that Fyodor heard it in this room. He resisted the urge to clap.
Fyodor sniffed. Dead animal smell lingered in C5. The room was empty, but the ventilation slats stood conspicuous against the far wall. Fyodor shunted himself inside.
Undoing the two locking clasps, Fyodor swung open the vent cover. He beamed his chest light inside.
Two more dead bats. Like the one from C6, they moldered. Their grey skin looked shucked like corn husks.
Fyodor felt a buzz against his wrist bone. He stretched his arm to reveal the watch beneath his sleeve. The hexagonal micro-display glowed with a bright blue ring icon, indicating a message from Nicholas.
Fyodor pressed a button on the wrist receiver. The text expanded. It ran long - Fyodor received a clipped version:
"Warning: Failed to allocate 30 kW to…"
Fyodor felt his hair raise, as if the room were charged with static.
The music stopped.
—
Four dead speakers breathed a sickly swollen hush.
Fyodor's body spasmed, twisted, and kicked.
He flew through the expanded iris.
He shouldered the corridor wall.
Rebounding, he caught the rail.
He palmed the door control.
C5 puckered shut.
Fyodor listened.
The hallway.
Silent.
Still.
Fyodor spun, wide eyes staring at the speakers by the carriage. No Rite of Spring did he hear, just a vacancy - a bombshell deafness.
Fyodor threw himself with reckless momentum. He slammed against the carriage's door. Ignoring pain, he grabbed the stationary bar and palmed the display. The iris expanded.
Fyodor entered. He spun. He saw Eurydice at the corridor's far end.
Meow! Here kitty. Eurydice, come here you stupid fucking cat!
The cat watched Fyodor flail his arms.
Something caught Fyodor's eye. From the vent above C7, between him and Eurydice, a bat burst. It screeched, shattering the silence. It seemed deranged, thumping against the wall, writhing as it floated. Fyodor saw its furry black skin start peeling around its wings, revealing the pinker tissue.
Fyodor shut the door and thumbed 'bridge' into the console, leaving Eurydice behind.
—
As The Phoebus's carriage slid along, Fyodor panted. He clutched his head, pulling his hair, cursing.
Idiot! Why'd you waste time on the container door? It won't stop Noys.
No sound here either. Damn you, Nicholas! I said no reboots. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Poor Eurydice…
Mourn later, think now. Get to the console. Restart the music. Container by container, I'll drive that horrible Noys back to his bottle.
—
The overlapping curves of iris door metal slid back with a steam hiss. When the hissing ceased, The Phoebus's cabin lay in the vacuum of sound unique to a ship isolated by a trillion miles.
Fyodor flung himself at the console. Having plotted a mental sequence of action, he now executed that sequence. He situated himself in the pilot's chair. He buckled the white nylon belt over his waist and shoulders. Looking directly into Nicholas's camera he issued an order, forming each word carefully with his lips.
Nicholas, in the carriage and cabin speakers, resume The Rite of Spring.
White sans serif letters chugged across the left display: "Fyodor, my sensors indicate The Rite of Spring is issuing from every audio system in The Phoebus. Shall I cease output to all systems excluding the cabin and the carriage?"
Fyodor could almost hear the giggling trumpets of The Ritual Action of the Ancestors, as if they were mocking him. He breathed deeply and spoke again.
Nicholas, there is no music. Please turn it on.
"I'm sorry about that, Fyodor. Let me run a diagnostic."
Nicholas… hurry. Also, switch display 2 to partition C's viewscreen.
The display switched to an angled perspective of the corridor Fyodor had just fled. It appeared in painstaking detail and lurid hue. Fyodor could see the mutilated bat floating beside C3's palm reader. He caught a glance of Eurydice. Fyodor turned aside, but a glance was enough.
The cat spasmed in death. Its brown, tabby pelt hung red-stained and loose. Its white teeth and gums and eyeballs showed hideously.
Apart from Eurydice, the partition had looked empty and still. Fyodor could imagine the long soundless hall, and the long soundless tunnel of the carriage; silent boulevards - for Mr. Noys, a pleasant stroll.
Nicholas, have you found the issue?
"Hello Fyodor. I have determined that audio systems are indeed disabled across The Phoebus. I am collating, and will estimate a reboot time once collation completes."
—
NICHOLAS! Mr. Noys is going to murder me!
Nothing appeared on the display. Fyodor choked back a sob and carefully mouthed each word.
Make The Phoebus sing, Nicholas. Fix the audio.
"Hello Fyodor. I am still collating."
Fyodor thrashed, held down only by the seatbelt, slamming his fists against the chair. His chest heaved recycled air. He watched the seconds tick on Nicholas's display. Fyodor tried not to think of the space behind him. There would be nothing to see in that space…
Fyodor started mouthing the bum, bum, bumbum of The Rite's Sacrificial Dance. He forced himself to look at the stars.
"I'm sorry, Fyodor, I didn't understand. Can you repeat that?"
Of course Nicholas couldn't understand, thought Fyodor. Music made no sense from the mouth of a mute.
Nicholas, how much longer?
"Hello Fyodor. I have finished collating and begun a reboot. I estimate full functionality in 400 minutes. In the meantime, would you like to read a book?"
The silence gnawed. Fyodor started clapping, slowly at first, then faster, filling the void. He clapped hard, with speed, despite the sting in his hands.
The sound felt microscopic compared to The Rite of Spring.
Fyodor felt his hair stand. He shivered. He stopped clapping, noticing a new pain. He looked at the backs of his hands.
The skin around Fyodor's fingernails was peeling. Like pencil shavings, long rollers of cuticle and tissue curled down his fingers, all ten, past the first knuckle, then the second, then down the back of his hand. The skin started peeling faster, first forming thin crimson lines, like a pinstripe suit, and now joining into wide tracks of flesh never meant for beholding. Blood dripped onto the white nylon seatbelt.
As his skin crawled off his body, and his gums tore away from his teeth, and his eyelids widening so far they began to rip like leather at the corners, Fyodor heard a voice - like a phonograph at the bottom of a well - by his ear:
"Fyo-dor… You… sound… love-ly…"
Thank you for reading. This story was written for the Wicked Writing Contest. Check out the results for other Macabre stories.
Ive read it four times. And i dont typically reread. Very creative and original work Sam. . I have so many questions. Is there a connection between the container names and the octaves on a piano? What the hell is Mr. Noys? Why did you choose Rite of Spring? Really well done. 👹
Oh my goodness! You really did make my skin crawl! For me, the most effective monster stories are the ones in which you never see the monster, and you did that with such aplomb!