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            Cell by cell, the potent drug she inhaled seeped throughout her system, battling the ingrained matrix of her genetic nature.  A part of her mind lifted from its confining flesh.  Within her body another part of her mind remained, ticking off the seconds, instructing her lungs to breath and her heart to beat.  Never had she dared to depart from her body completely.

Through the ship the disembodied Fatima roamed.  Around the curving third deck corridor to the lander bay, through the huge freezer packed with everything that could be needed to start a colony, including frozen human embryos to provide inhabitants for that colony, should the Scoutship ever be stranded, unable to return home.  Fatima continued through the minuscule medical lab where Doc had devoted most of their year in space to the study of coffee cup grown organisms.  He acquired a distracted expression at her disembodied touch.  Fatima moved on, through maintenance, the domain of Krieger, the old man of the ship, a veteran of a dozen scouter expeditions.

On an impulse, Fatima flung herself through the ship’s hull into the clear of space.  A song caressed her.  Not a song.  Music.  Not music.  This defied definition.  It came from the planet.  Fatima was engulfed by the song.  Sing with us, the inhuman message came to her.  A tinge of fear passed through Fatima.  These were not the voices of the living.  This existence belonged to some other realm.

Fatima fled, back through the Verdrehen’s hull, with questions unanswered.  But the lure had been planted within her.  And the lure had a name:  Gandharvas.

Through the narrow, circular passageway of the second deck Fatima drifted.  She passed Diana’s cabin without stopping.  Even as a spirit she carried the human reluctance to intrude on the Captain and Diana’s coition. . .  No, they were done.  There was so little change in the emotional emanations it was difficult to tell.

Alfred greeted Fatima as she moved into the Lounge.  Only he was aware of the ethereal spirit among them.  Once, when she asked why this was, Alfred had told her it was obvious:  He was a cat.  He had refused to explain further.

He was, now, carrying on a detailed conversation with Tony about Diana.  Tony understood none of it, though he thought he did.

If you want to copulate with that female, just bite her on the back of the neck and climb on.  Don’t be shy, man! 

Fatima chuckled lightly and moved on.

Hydroponics was a sauna.  Fatima was drained, exhausted.  She struggled to her feet, graceful even in her weakness.  Naked and sweating, she stepped out into the curving third deck corridor.  She slumped against the bulkhead.

The memory of the experience was slipping from her.  She fought to hold on to it, but it eluded her, becoming a shadow flitting around the fringes of her consciousness.  Not substantial.  Nothing to grasp.

Sorrow filled her.

Tears were illogical.  Fatima filed the remaining wisps of the experience in a temporary memory buffer for later analysis.  One solid thought did remain.  She must warn the Captain, warn him that someone--something--was waiting for them.

Quickly, she thought, quickly before that memory too vanishes.  Forgetting her lack of clothes (a Terrestrial custom not shared by the Procyon colony), Fatima straightened up and started toward the spiral staircase to the second deck.  Halfway up the stairs she came face to face with a fiercely hissing Alfred.

She didn’t back away or flinch, the idea of fearing Alfred was one that would never occur to her.  Instead, she tilted her head and said, “But, Alfred, I must tell him of the. . . the. . . Gand. . . Gan. . . ” She almost whimpered, “Oh, I’ve forgotten.  You made me forget.  Why did you do that?  It was. . .”

“What is it, Fatima?”  The Captain leaned over the edge of the stairwell. 

“G. . .ghosts,” Fatima finally managed.  She felt herself blushing (illogical, illogical) at her failure to provide the Captain with complete data. 

Diana and Tony’s faces joined the Captain's.  They all stared down at Fatima and Alfred, who innocently busied himself with a thorough cleaning of his hind quarters. 

“Ghosts,” the Captain repeated very slowly.  “Where?”

“On the planet,” Fatima's soft voice dropped to a whisper. 

Diana and Tony exchanged an eye-rolling look while Captain Daniels calmly examined his naked Botanist.  “I will take that under serious consideration.  Thank you, Fatima,” he said evenly.  “I would appreciate it, however, if you would refrain from using your abhijna drug until we have completed this planetary survey.”

Feeling her sense of control returning fully, Fatima nodded.  “Yes, sir.”  She added hesitantly, “It is physically harmless and non-addicting, sir.”

“And darned fun at parties,” Diana inserted.

“Too right,” Tony seconded. 

“Sorry, sir,” Diana and Tony said in unison, smiling, as the Captain glared at them.

Captain Daniels sighed.  “All right, everyone.  We’ve got work to do.”  He started to turn away, paused.  “And Fatima, one more thing. . .”

“Sir?” she lisped.

“Clothes.”

Beneath a gray, rain-drenched Melbourne sky, Alfred the Cat stretched and yawned.  A light cool breeze wafted over him making even his nose wrinkle at the smell.  Wasn’t that female ever going to change his litter box?  Perhaps it was time for another negative reinforcement to encourage Diana to remember her duties to him.  Alfred blinked his luminous eyes and studied Diana.  She had fallen asleep on the other couch in the Lounge, worn out from a long day going over data on the planet and later from a heated game of tetrad chess with Tony.  They were like two cats, Alfred decided, always fighting and tussling.  When would they realize it was time for a mutual licking session?

Alfred rolled over onto his back and stared at the cloudy ceiling.  The projected clouds moved with agonizing slowness, barely thinning before the system hit a glitch, starting the darkest clouds over again.  So it had been for over six months when one of Tony’s experiments had gone array.  And this is supposed to keep them sane?  Alfred thought scornfully.  Why did they think they needed things like artificial skies when they had him?  According to his humans he was here to provide a warm, furry companion who would listen without talking and love unconditionally.  According to Alfred (and his was the only opinion that really mattered), he was here to be entertained and adored.  Primarily, he was here to guide these lowly humans through the mysteries of the universe.  The disparity in viewpoints did not disturb the cat.  He knew he was right.

With a jaw-cracking yawn, followed by a sneeze worthy of a creature twenty times his size, Alfred sat up.  He jumped down and crossed to the other couch.  Diana's hand was hanging over the edge.  Arching, Alfred rubbed his head against her hand (just to mark her as his property, Alfred mentally qualified).  Diana stirred.

Drowsily, she murmured, “Alfred, kitty.  You understand, don’t you?  You understand everything about everybody and everything there is to understand in the entire universe.”

Alfred purred and closed his eyes to slits.  Perhaps this female wasn’t hopeless after all, if she understood the omniscience of cats.  Maybe it was time to tell her about the Gandharvas, about what she must do. 

But Diana rolled over, never completely awakened at all.

Quietly, Alfred left the Lounge, heading for a wonderfully hidden, cat-sized sleeping place he knew.  First, however, he had to stop by Diana's cabin and throw-up on her bunk.

Waves of song washed over Fatima as the lander separated from the ship and dropped closer to the planet.  This world lacked the dusting of lights that decorated the continents of Earth.  This was the black of an empty world.  Fatima stared at the darkness, trying to reconcile the word ‘empty’ with the sensations she felt.

Fatima tensed and untensed each of her muscles to reestablish connection with her physical body.  She shook her head and focused on the interior of the lander.  Diana was hunched over the controls, oblivious to the view.  Her concentration was taken solely by the hard reality of the instruments, computers and equations used to pilot the lander.  Fatima envied Diana her sense of cold worldness.  It must be a truly happy thing, Fatima reflected, to be content with the certainty of the binary; the on/off, yes/no, one/zero.  There were no ghosts in Diana's world, Fatima reached the unstartling conclusion.

Tony was different from either of them.  As Fatima studied him, he split his attention between the instruments and the growing shape of the planet.  He stared suddenly at the main screen.  Lightning flared through a storm far below them, flashing through clouds above the dark planet.

“It’s a beaut,” Tony murmured reverently.

The distant lightning of an alien world entranced Fatima.  Voices that were not voices encompassed her.  They compelled her to come to them.  Fatima abandoned the encumbrance of her body and moved toward them, past the instrument panel, past the screen, through the clear emptiness of space, toward perfection, detachment, toward. . .

Fatima took a deep gasping breath.  It settled her back into her body with a harsh jolt.

“Patience,” she breathed, “I’m coming.”

Tony turned sharply toward her.  “You all right?”

A sheen of sweat covered her face.  She breathed deeply and rapidly, as if she had not breathed for several minutes.  Perhaps she had not, Fatima decided.

“Fatima.”  Tony’s voice cut through.  “Are you all right?  Been smoking that bloody abhijna again?  Eh?”  He mangled the pronunciation.

“No.  No.  I’m fine,” she insisted.  Indeed, this was the first time such a thing had happened without the help of the drug.  It both frightened and elated her.  With an effort she reset her mind into a digitally analytical pattern that would have made her creators proud. 

“All right, then.  Get your mind in gear, love.”  He was still examining her suspiciously.  “We’ll be hitting atmosphere straight away.  Everything’s calibrated.  You ready to take a squiz at this place?”

“Standing by to squiz, sir,” she answered with a faint smile, turning her soft Procyon lisp into a fair imitation of Tony’s accent.  Tony grinned at her and turned back toward the planet.

82 Eridani burst from behind the curving bulge of the planet as they crossed the terminator.  The surface colored into a glistening display of azure oceans frosted with white clouds.

“Splendid,” Tony said.

Diana sneaked a glance up from her instruments.  All three exchanged a quick smile.  A virgin dawn.  A beautiful new world. 

“We’re in for a big bonus on this one,” Diana said, totally missing the spirit of the moment.

Tony looked pained.  “It’s not the money. . . it’s the. . . just look at it.  Glorious.”

Diana fixed a look of uncomprehending blankness on him.

“Atmospheric interface,” Diana announced.  “Fatima, start your readings.”

“Atmosphere within human parameters,” Fatima reported barely seconds later.  “No indication of industrialized contamination.  Proceeding with biological tests.”  She processed the incoming data raw, interpreting the compressed computer data directly, not waiting for the computer to interpret for her.

“My god,” Tony gasped.  He was given to quiet exclamations of the beauty/splendor/glory of things.  Usually he was ignored.  This was different.  His tone captured Diana’s and Fatima’s attention immediately.  The ship completed another orbit, slipping back into the darkness of the nightside.

“What is it?”  Diana demanded.

“Buildings.”

Alfred chose that moment to crawl sleepily from his hiding place under the rear seat.  He announced his presence with a loud roaw.

Diana jumped, kept from banging her head by her seat restraints.  “How did he get in here?!” she yelped.

Alfred moved, purring lazily, up between Tony and Diana in the front two seats. 

“Fatima!  Secure him,” Diana snapped.  “Tony.  Are you saying this place is inhabited?  Are you sure?  Buildings?  There were no roads, no lights on nightside, no broadcasts in any band, nothing we could see from orbit.”

Tony shrugged.  “They were regular geometric shapes.  I read them as buildings.  Maybe the aliens are preindustrial, or don't use roads or lights.  Though,” Tony allowed judiciously, “plants were definitely encroaching.  Maybe no one is home anymore.”

“Ghosts.”  Fatima was barely audible.  Alfred mewed.

Diana snorted in disgust.  “If anyone is home down there, we’re about to sonic boom them.  May even be enough to wake the dead.”

A moment later all three humans caught their breaths.  Nothing was said.  Nothing need be said.  As the sonic boom announced their arrival, a sparkling wave of lights shattered the darkness.  The lander glided through the black sky just behind the spread of lights.  They illuminated the entire nightside.  It was as if everyone on the planet suddenly turned on their lights to warn the intruders that someone was, indeed, home.

“The historians are going to have to rewrite this one,” Diana commented dryly.  “The first time the human race has encountered an alien civilization and the best anyone could come up with is, ‘They’re not much for gardening.’  That will look good next to ‘one small step, one giant leap.’”

“They’re not much for welcoming committees, either,” Tony added.  “We haven’t exactly encountered anyone, yet.”

Fatima held the wriggling Alfred while she silently contemplated the scene.  Diana had set the lander down on a grassy plaza area facing three large structures.  The buildings were all of a muddy brown stone, veined with sage green.  Creeping vines had nearly engulfed the buildings.  A modified pyramid shape seemed to dominate.  As 82 Eridani dawned the lights on the buildings faded.

The plaza/lawn area was overgrown with a shaggy, fine-stemmed grass.  The entire place looked like a garden gone wild.

“All atmosphere readings safe,” Fatima said in response to a computer squeal in her ear.

“Likewise radiation,” Tony said.  “Looks like home, eh?”

Fatima didn’t answer.  The Procyon colony was subterranean, the surface of the planet being uninhabitable.  Home, to Fatima, was a world of dark crystalline forms and toxic gray mists.

“Well, here we go,” Diana sounded slightly apprehensive to Fatima.  Reasonable, Fatima considered, even though Diana was the one trained to meet and communicate with sentient aliens, she’d never expected to actually meet any. 

“No, Alfred,” Fatima told the struggling cat firmly.  “You must stay here.”  After attaching an impromptu collar and leash to Alfred (whose comments on this occasion needed no translation to be understood) she announced, “Ready.”

Diana dropped the ramp of the lander and the three armed invaders moved cautiously into the warm sunshine.  They all breathed deeply, enjoying their first unprocessed air in over a year. 

“Not even a trace of cat box smell,” Diana said happily, glancing into the lander toward Alfred (who was busy working out the mechanics of the collar and leash).

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            Their next view of the cat was of a furry shape appearing above the grass only at the apex of his bounds across the plaza.

“Alfred, damn you!  Get back here,” Diana yelled after him.  Fatima groaned.

Tony lowered his sensor and shrugged.  “No worries.  Let him go.  There’s nothing here.  Reckon this won’t be First Contact after all.  This place is dead.”

Fatima shivered.  The sensations coming from the buildings were powerful.

“Don't make assumptions,” Diana said harshly.  “Let’s go.”

Diana led the way with Tony and Fatima trailing behind.

Fatima touched Tony lightly on the arm, causing them to fall even further behind, out of Diana's hearing range.

“We’re staying here, Alfred and I,” Fatima whispered urgently.  “You must help make it so.”

“You’re crackers, you know.  Absolutely bonkers,” Tony told her amiably.

“It’s because of the others, the singers.  The g. . .ghosts, beings from another realm, another dimension perhaps.  You’re a physicist.  You understand such things.”

“And you’re a loon.  Sweet and beautiful, but still a loon.”  Tony took her by the waist, trying to urge her forward.   “There’s nothing here and no scientific basis for ghosts.”

Fatima faced Tony, her dark eyes intense.  Her face tightened as she struggled to filter the influx of new sensations that, even now, flowed around her and through her.  They melded with her memory fragments, making the picture more complete to her.  “They sing without sound.  They. . .” she trailed off lamely.  Data overload, she thought dully.

“Right.”  Tony stared at her for a long moment.  Was he feeling even a hint of what she felt, Fatima wondered.  “Blimey, love.  I’m going to end up as nuts as you.”  Tony said, “Now, let’s hurry before Officer Lindquist blows her frippin’ stack.”

 

It looked like stone.  It felt like stone.  When they hit it with a chisel to break off a sample it cringed and turned all manner of angry colors.  The chisel didn’t even scratch the surface, much less break off a piece.

Fatima moved past Tony and Diana, ran her hand across the green-mottled surface.  From her pouch she pulled a magnifier scope and examined the stone.  They were at the base of the largest structure.  It was a vine-covered pyramid with columns, extension and ramps added.  Some of the ramps had sides, such as safety conscious humans would build.  Others wound high up the side of the pyramid without railings, narrowing and trailing off for no apparent reason.

“It’s not stone at all,” Fatima said, still bent to her scope.  “The cell structure is very similar to that of the plant life here.  It’s alive.  Rather than being built it may have grown.”  The stone in the path of her voice glowed a faint blue and gold.

“One organism or many?”  Diana asked.

“Many.  The stone appears to be a colony of very tiny organisms bonded together.  I believe they would be too simple to have intelligence.”  Fatima answered.

“Like a coral reef,” Tony put in.

Fatima nodded.  “In concept.  Not in actual composition.“  She rocked back on her heels.  “Shaped by sound?  Sound waves as a construction tool?”  she wondered.

Tony whistled.  He and Fatima noted, with interest, a color change to red.  Diana was staring, with a worried expression, at the peak of the structure.

“Looks like a Cathedral,” Diana commented.  “Let’s see if we can get inside.”

At the first click of her heel on the ramp, Diana froze.  Beneath her foot the stone quivered and colored.

“Walk quietly,” Fatima suggested.

Balancing forward, Diana went up the ramp without further incident.  Cautiously she chose a side door rather than the main Cathedral entrance.  The door slid aside at Diana’s touch.  Admirably, she didn’t jump.

Diana took her weapon out.  The interior was dark, murkily lit by sunlight drifting through narrow slits in the walls.  There was nothing in the chamber, no objects, no artifacts.  Diana moved cautiously in, followed by Tony and Fatima who was surprised to find her heart pounding rapidly.

Suddenly, Diana whirled.  “What is it?”  Her words echoed, taking on shape, texture.  They literally bounced around the chamber repeating louder, softer, louder, softer.  It was fully a minute before silence was restored.

Diana motioned them outside. 

“A sound chamber,” Tony said.  “Amazing physical manipulation of sound.  The inhabitants are--or were--impressive acoustical engineers.”   

Diana was shaking her head.  “Something touched me,” she said flatly, obviously keeping her voice steady with an effort.

Fatima said nothing.  She had felt the ghostly hands too.

 

”?seod eno siht esoppus uoy od tahW“

”!sdrawkcaB“

Tony and Diana dashed back into the sunshine laughing.  Fatima followed slowly, with a solemn expression on her delicate features.  For Tony and Diana the danger and mystery had turned into play as each chamber brought new patterns of physical sound manipulation.  There had still been no trace of occupants, living or dead.  Diana had been quick to dismiss her earlier experience with the ghostly fingers as nerves, Fatima noted.  Fatima, herself, was beginning to wonder if her own feelings could not be explained away as imagination, drugs and foolish transcendental fantasies. 

“Backwards!  Can you bloody believe it?  This place is absolutely smashing.”

Diana grinned at Tony.  “Enjoy it while it lasts.  The first thing the colonists will do is knock out some walls and put in plumbing.”

“Too right.  I do hope the Scout Service does an archeological first.  My estimates indicate that these buildings have been abandoned for over a thousand years,” Tony said.

“But where did they go?  What happened to them?”  Diana's smile faded as she pondered the questions.  “There's no sign of natural disaster, war, disease, or anything else.  No bodies, no bones.  So, where'd they go?  What killed them?”

“They're not dead.”  Fatima sank down into a lotus position on the vine-edged ramp.  Where had that bit of non sequitur thinking come from?  She held still for a moment to quiet her sudden trembling. 

“What do you mean?” Diana asked in a voice one might use on a child.

Fatima barely whispered, “They didn't die.  They evolved.”

Meow!

All three heads turned to a ramp one level higher.  Alfred sauntered casually down, stretching and blinking. 

“Well, Alfred.  I hope you had a nice day sunning yourself,” Diana said sarcastically as she made a grab for the cat.  Alfred effortlessly dodged her and leaped down beside Fatima.  With a quivering hand she reached for the cat, digging her fingers into his thick yellow fur. 

Fatima met Alfred's gaze and clearly saw the concern in his eyes.  Don’t worry, he mewed.  The Gandharvas are wonderful people.  You’ll like them.

Inhaling sharply, Fatima blinked.  Her eyes darted up to meet Tony's and Diana’s.  “Did you understand what Alfred said?”

“Too right,” Tony agreed confidently.  “He said he’s hungry.”  (No, I’m not.  I had a very tasty, but stupid, furry critter.)  Tony turned to Diana.  “Now that we got the cat back, what say we have a go at the Cathedral?”

Diana glanced at 82 Eridani dropping lower in the sky.  “Okay.  One last chamber, then we’ve got to get set for night.”  She looked down at Fatima and Alfred (who was glaring at Tony with his tail batting).  “Fatima, take Alfred back to the lander.  Wait for us there.”

 

“All I got was isolation.  An amazing aloneness,” Diana was telling Fatima when she and Tony had returned to the lander.  In spite of Alfred's soothing comments, Fatima had been worried about the length of time her companions were gone.  Now, Alfred listened from his perch on the pilot's seat with a critically cocked ear.  “It was silence, complete silence, not even so much as a vibration.”

“It was more than silence,” Tony began.  Diana had had to pull him back out of the Cathedral, so absorbed in its silence had he been.  “There was song, filled with serenity and. . . It was. . . ”  He shuddered and stopped. 

Diana gave Tony a long hard look, shook her head and walked away from the lander muttering to herself, “I’m surrounded by kooks.  One sees ghosts, one hears music in silence, and the other thinks my bunk is the proper place to puke. . .”

Alfred came as close as a cat could to smiling. But he kept quiet, yawned widely and bided his time. 

“Tony!  Help me set the motion sensors,” Diana called.

82 Eridani was completely below the horizon by the time the last sensor post was set.  As Diana began to make one last round, checking the placement of the posts, Tony leaned against the side of the lander.  He could hear Fatima crooning to herself inside the tiny ship.  Alfred appeared in the doorway, rubbing his head against Tony's shoulder. 

“Hey, what’s happening, mate?”  Tony asked as he tickled Alfred's ears.

And Alfred told him. 

“Okay, fire it up,” Diana yelled from the growing darkness.

Tony gaped at Alfred for a long moment before he reached for the switch.

“Wait!  Wait!”  Diana screamed.  “Alfred.  Come back here.”  She dived for the cat, but missed.  Alfred vanished into the night.

“Let’s go get him,” Tony suggested.

“Too dangerous,” Diana’s voice carried authority.

“If we don’t fetch him back now he’ll be tripping the alarms all night,” Tony pointed out.  “And there’s nothing dangerous here.  Everyone’s dead.  Right?”  His voice seemed to be questioning Diana’s conviction on that point.

“Ghosts.” Fatima's muffled voice came from the lander. 

Diana leaned around, peering up the ramp into the lander.  Fatima was surrounded by a cloud of sweet smoke.  “The Gandharvas call,” Fatima mumbled, “for us to sing with them.”

Diana rubbed her temples and sighed.  “All right.  Let’s go.”

As Tony and Diana started off into the darkness, toward the Cathedral, led by teasing mews and roaws, they missed Fatima’s added comment, “Don’t worry about the Gandharvas.  Alfred has taken care of everything.”

Alfred, in purely cat fashion, was manipulating the movements of his humans.  Staying just ahead of them, he would wait, calling to them when they got off course.  It was a tedious business, but with beings as slow and imperceptive as humans a cat had to be incredibly patient.  Fatima was taken care of, or soon would be.  She’ll be happier, Alfred reflected as he dashed close enough to Diana to cause her to break into a trot.  Fatima was rather maladjusted, even for a human.

Diana was his problem now.  Alfred was not impressed by her calls of “here kitty, kitty.”  He told her as much and was gratified to hear Tony chuckle in response.

“Really think he’ll come for that?”  Tony asked.

“Quiet,” Diana hissed.  “Here kitty.  Come here, Alfred.  If I could just spot him. . .” she whispered, sweeping her light low over the shaggy plaza lawn.

“If it’s light you want.  No worries.”  Tony pulled out his weapon, selected the sonic setting with a wide angle and low intensity, and beamed it over the buildings.  Lights, like jewels, sprang on where the sonic beam touched.

Diana spun around.  “How’d you do that?”

Tony grinned.  “Remember how the lights on nightside came on after our sonic boom?  Bioluminescence, I should think.  The Gandhar. . . the creatures who lived here are. . . were. . . beings of sound.”  He began to tell her more, even though he could hear her teeth grinding together, forcibly resisting the urge to argue, but a cautious meow from the gloom ahead stopped him.  The building lights responded with a subtle dimming to hazy gold.

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            “This way,” Diana whispered.  The ramp turned a corner, taking them out of sight of the lander.  They followed the walkway to a long row of arches.  Vines had crept over the arches, treating them as trellises.

Diana stopped short of the first arch, scanning it dubiously.  It was fully night now and the arches were unlit.  Danger could lurk unseen.  Another meow said to go forward.  “Stupid cat,” Diana muttered.

“Alfred’s not stupid.  You should listen to some of the things he says,” Tony paused.  “Strangest thing, I always thought I was understanding him before.  But, back at the lander, a bit ago, it all seemed so much clearer.  Bloody peculiar.”

Diana gritted her teeth, put her hand on her weapon, and started forward.  Soft cat sounds taunted them from a short distance ahead.  They passed under a hundred meters of more of vine-covered arches before reaching the last one.  The ramp turned a sharp corner and stopped.  There appeared to be no other access  and no apparent purpose.

“Dead end,” Diana said unnecessarily.  She lifted her light, preparing to scan the overhang with it, when Tony’s hand closed over hers.  He thumbed the light off, leaving them in darkness save for the faint illumination of the secondary moon.

Tony's lips nipped the back of her neck.  She shivered.  His arms moved around her. 

“Fighting’s over.  Time for a little mutual licking,” Tony said.

Above them, on a high and narrow ledge, a pair of inhuman eyes narrowed to glittering slits.  Alfred the Cat gazed down on the happy coupling of his two favorite pets.  She'll have a beautiful litter, he purred.

 

Fatima’s lithe body reflected a timeless grace.  Each muscle was poised and prepared as a dancer ready to pirouette.  Yet even her readiness expressed a patient and relaxed calm.  Not one erg of energy was wasted in tension.

She faced the structure they called the Cathedral.  Its pyramid shape rose out of the gentle tangle of green that was the plant-life of this world.  The Botanist in her makeup took note of the plant forms.  Ivies crept their tendrils up the Cathedral walls.  None dared intrude on the ramps.

Carefully, she edited these digital concerns from her mind.  The answers to this world were analog, laying not in sun and substance, but in shadow and song.

As her hand hesitated a millimeter from the featureless stone door, Fatima's mind pranced with apprehension.  This was not the way she had been bred to think.  Measure it.  Test it.  Record it.  Analyze it.

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            “Who am I?”  she said softly to the door.  The gem-like lights around her glowed blue and gold as her voice touched them.  “Who am I to dare enter your world?”  Unseen hands whispered against her flesh, summoning her forward.  Or was it illusion?

The door moved obediently aside at her light touch.

In the center of the unbroken space, directly beneath the point of the pyramid, Fatima eased herself to the floor.

The drug was a shortcut, a perversion, she thought as she lit the rolled abhijna.  Fatima drew the smoke into her lungs.  The subtle chemicals loosened the inhibitions of the outer world. 

Fatima was free to roam the pathways within.

Lightshafts began to radiate a golden glow around her.  Songs shaped in silence made their light.  The drifting smoke gave the columns of light a ghostly form.

Fatima sang into the silence.  Her voice issued not words, but the elusive song of the Gandharvas, beings of sound who had gone beyond the physical sound they treasured.

The shape of the music sculpted the columns of smoke.  Objects took on form.  They came from Fatima's imagination, her memory, translated by her song into shadows of reality.

There was the glass from which she had drunk a sad and solemn toast.  There was a crystal from her far-distant home.  There was a flower, crushed by her hand as her heart had been crushed by its giver.

The song was Fatima.  The quietly perverting power of the drug that made the song possible also distorted it, choosing and amplifying certain emotions.  It was bitter sorrow sung into sweet pains.  The shapes became loneliness, despair and the hopeless tang of homesickness.  The song gave shape to her deepest hurts.

“Is there no joy?” the last shard of her outer being asked before it was immersed in the rich sorrow of her song.

In the smoke a hand reached out to her.  And in this Fatima's sorrows were complete.  It was the hand of the mother she had never had, the comforting caress she had never known.

“We know you now,” the Gandharvas told her.  Their multitudes filled the Cathedral.  Strange, she had not noticed their numbers before.  “Come, little alien.  Join our song.”

Fatima rose from the confines of substance; the sorrows of the flesh.

She sang.

 

Clothes and weapons were scattered in heedless indifference. 

“Splendid,” Diana whispered, unconsciously using Tony’s words.

Slowly, gently, Tony disengaged himself from her.

“Look up,” he said.

Diana tilted her head upward.  “Oh.  Alfred.”

Alfred blinked and stretched.  Well, that took long enough,  he meowed.

Tony smiled at Alfred’s comment.  Tomorrow I’ll take Diana back to the Cathedral, Tony said silently to Alfred, Maybe then she’ll hear the voices of the Gandharvas, songs beyond normal human hearing.

But not beyond mine, Alfred mewed.

Of course not.  You’re a cat, Tony answered and faintly heard their gathered audience chuckle.

“No.  Look higher,” Tony prodded Diana, remembering to speak aloud, to make molecules vibrate, so Diana could hear.

Above them the sky was a canopy of stars.  Tony listened as a chorus of unseen aliens described the stars, their movements, the forces acting on and between them, with an elegant symmetry that made human mathematics seem pale and clumsy.

Diana drank in the view with eyes she thought were enlightened, her ears and her mind still deaf to the rich choir.  She squeezed Tony’s hand.  “We better get back to the lander,” she said.  “We’ve left Fatima alone too long.”  She stood and began gathering her clothes.  “We’ll take more samples in the morning then get back to the ship.  In spite of a few unsolved mysteries, this place seems prime for colonization.  The basic survey shouldn’t take more than a week.  Colonists should be arriving within a year.”  She dressed rapidly as she spoke.

Tony took her in his arms, again, holding her tightly, trying to recapture her attention, her openness.

From above them Alfred expressed his opinion with a very earnest roaw.  There was a chime of agreement from the gathered throng of Gandharvas.  Fatima's voice was among them.

Diana looked about with a baffled expression.  “Did you hear something?” she asked. 

On the planet Gandharva the night was silent save for the rustle of leaves stirred by the breeze, and the scurry of small animals.  To the eyes, the stars shined down on the remains of a civilization long-dead.  Diana turned her face upward to the stars.  On the high ledge, Alfred squeezed his emerald eyes to narrow slits and listened quietly to Diana's thoughts, feeling the internal struggle she was resisting.  A low, and very genuine, purr rumbled in his throat.  If she tried, Diana was thinking, she could triangulate to find that far-distant yellow star called home.  But she wasn’t sure why it mattered.  Out here was where she wanted to be, not held down beneath the atmosphere of one world, not this one nor even Earth, but free to roam all the new worlds waiting for her out there.  Alfred’s purr stopped short.

“I do understand,” she said finally, her voice very low.  Her eyes met Alfred's. 

I know you do.

Over her shoulder to Tony, Diana said, “You can’t stay.  I need your help to arrange things.”

 

“Yes, sir,” Diana was saying coolly, “The loss of our Botanist, Fatima, is regrettable and of course the ship’s cat, as well.  It’s clear that this planet is far too dangerous to even consider for colonization.  Officer Jackson’s,” she gestured toward Tony, “reports on surface radiation and bacteriological contamination confirm that decision.  The planet would be as lethal in the long run, as it has proven to be in the short run.”

Captain Daniels paced the small Control Room.  “Unfortunate.  It looked so promising.”  He paused in reflective silence for a long time.

Reckon he knows we’re lying?

No.  We covered everything, every log entry, every reading.

Are you sure it wouldn't be better just to explain that the planet is already inhabited?

By what?  Creatures that can't be seen, that have evolved beyond physical bodies?  Ghosts?  You know that wouldn’t stop the Colonial Service from invading.  Relax, Tony.  Greg trusts me.

And I love you, my whinging sheila.

Sheesh, you even think with that silly accent!

Captain Daniels stirred, looking again at his silently waiting crew members.  “As soon as the Doctor completes his autopsy of Fatima’s body. . . ”

Empty husk.

Yes, she still lives!

“. . . we’ll conduct the cremation.” 

Captain.  I mean. . .  “Captain.  I feel it would be appropriate if we put her body into a decaying orbit into Gandharva’s atmosphere,” Tony said.

“Very well,” Captain Daniels agreed.  “You still haven’t explained how you arrived at that name for the planet.”

“It was something that Alf. . . I mean, Fatima suggested.  Probably something from the strange stuff she was into,” Diana injected quickly.

“Yes, well. . . . log it as such,” the Captain ordered.  Turning away from the two he started toward the stairway.  “It’s late.  I’m going to bed.  We’ll break orbit tomorrow and start for Kapteyn’s Star,” to Tony, “as soon as you have the calculations ready.”

After the Captain had disappeared Diana turned to Tony.  “There’s something I have to do.”

I want to come.

No.  You have to cover for me.

 

From the packed freezer to the lander bay Diana crept.  Verdrehen was dark and still during these hours that the ship designated as night.  But, as the lander separated, the full light of 82 Eridani shone on her face.  Through the atmosphere she dropped, riding a wave of sound, the sonic boom announcing her arrival.

Clouds hung low and thick over the Cathedral.  The wind, wet with rain, slapped her face as she dropped the lander’s ramp.  She walked to the bottom of the ramp and stood.  In moments she was soaked through.  Diana couldn’t remember ever feeling better, or more alive. 

Across the rain-drenched plaza toward the Cathedral Diana trudged, weighed down by the heavy case she carried.

Welcome, dear sister, Fatima’s sweet voice chimed in Diana’s mind as she reached the Cathedral. 

Alfred greeted her with a with a very catly combination of roaws and snarls, a firm editorial about the Gandharvas’ poor management of the weather here, in Alfred's domain.

Diana chuckled and sat down by Alfred beneath an overhand, out of the rain.  Alfred leaned against her and she petted him gently.

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            Hours later, the storm had broken into ragged wisps colored by the sunset in rose and gold.  Diana believed it was the most glorious sunset she had ever seen. 

Beside her, Alfred sat studying her with mournful eyes.  She stroked him one last time.  His answering purr was honest in its affection.

I want to you to come back with me, she said to the cat.

And I want you to stay, he mewed.

“For you,” she told Alfred as she opened the case.  Beside Alfred she gently laid the limp bodies of two young tabbies.  Alfred looked up at her quizzically.  “They’ll be groggy for a while.  But they’ll be fine.”

“Thank you,” was not a sentiment normally in the vocabulary of cats.  Diana understood him anyhow.

We'll come back someday, Alfred, Fatima.  “Cats and Gandharvas,” Diana commented aloud to the still evening air.  Then she left, like a cat, without a farewell or backward glance.

The End

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