Infinity's Shore

Who taught you to play the piano, Mother? Sitting with you on this very bench, the way you used to sit beside me, trying to hide your disappointment in my awkward fingers?

A folio of sheet music lay atop the piano’s polished surface. Sara flipped through it, recalling ancient compositions that used to transfix her mother for duras at a stretch, rousing young Sara’s jealousy against those dots on a page. Dots Melina transformed into glorious harmonies.

Later, Sara realized how magical the melodies truly were. For they were repeatable. In a sense, written music was immortal. It could never die.

The typical Jijoan ensemble — a sextet including members from each sooner race — performed spontaneously. A composition was never quite the same from one presentation to the next. That trait appealed especially to blue qheuens and hoons, who, according to legend, had no freedom to innovate back in ordered Galactic society. They expressed puzzlement when human partners sometimes suggested recording a successful piece in traeki wax, or writing it down.

Whatever for? they asked. Each moment deserves its own song.

A Jijoan way of looking at things, Sara acknowledged.

She laid her hands on the keys and ran through some scales. Though out of practice, the exercise was like an old friend. No wonder Emerson also drew comfort from tunes recalling happier days.

Still, her mind churned as she switched to some simple favorites, starting with “Für Elise.”

According to Biblos anthropology texts, most ancient cultures on Earth used to play music that was impulsive, just like a Jijoan sextet. But shortly before they made their own way into space, humans also came up with written forms.

We sought order and memory. It must have seemed a refuge from the chaos that filled our dark lives.

Of course that was long ago, back when mathematics also had its great age of discovery on Earth. Is that a common thread? Did I choose math for the same reason Melina loved this instrument? Because it lends predictability amid life’s chaos?

A shadow fell across the wall. Sara drew back, half rising to meet the brown eyes of Foruni, aged leader of the horse-riding clan.

“Sorry to disturb you, dear.” The gray-headed matriarch motioned for Sara to sit. “But watching you, I could almost believe it was Melina back home with us, playing as she did, with such intensity.”

“I’m afraid I don’t look much like my mother. Nor do I play half as well.”

The old woman smiled. “A good parent wants her offspring to excel — to do what she could not. But a wise parent lets the child select which excellence. You chose realms of deep thought. I know she was very proud.”

Sara acknowledged the kindness with a nod, but took small comfort from aphorisms. If the choice really were mine, don’t you think I’d have been beautiful, like Melina? A dark woman of mystery, who amazed people with many graceful talents?

Mathematics chose me … it seized me with cool infinities and hints at universal truth. Yet whom do I touch with my equations? Who looks at my face and form with unreserved delight?

Melina died young, but surrounded by those who loved her. Who will weep over me, when I am gone?

The Illias leader must have misunderstood Sara’s frown.

“Do my words disturb you?” Foruni asked. “Do I sound like a heretic, for believing that generations can improve? Does it seem an odd belief for a secret tribe that hides itself even from a civilization of exiled refugees?”

Sara found it hard to answer.

Why were Melina’s children so odd, by Jijoan standards? Although Lark’s heresy seems opposite to mine, we share one thread — rejecting the Path of Redemption.

The books Mother read to us often spoke of hope, drawn from some act of rebellion.

To the Illias leader, she replied, “You and your urrish friends rescued horses, back when they seemed doomed. Your alliance foreshadowed that of Drake and Ur-Chown. You are a society of dedicated women, who carefully choose your male companions from the best Jijo has to offer. Living in splendid isolation, you see humanity at its best — seldom its more nasty side.

“No, it does not surprise me that the Illias are optimists at heart.”

Foruni nodded. “I am told that you, in your investigations of language theory, reached similar conclusions.”

Sara shrugged. “I’m no optimist. Not personally. But for a while, it seemed that I could see a pattern in the evolution of Jijo’s dialects, and in all the new literary activity taking place across the Slope. Not that it matters anymore, now that aliens have come to—”

The old woman cut in. “You don’t think we are destined to be like glavers, winning our second chance by passing through oblivion?”

“You mean what might have happened, if starships never came? I argued with Dedinger about this. If Jijo had been left alone, I felt there was the possibility of …”

Sara shook her head and changed the subject.

“Speaking of Dedinger, have you had any luck finding him?”