6y 9m 0w 0d BV
John groaned as he woke up. He reached out with an arm and found Regalo slumbering beside him. He smiled with his eyes still closed and scratched the Gaoian’s back. The low purr made John chuckle slightly as he got up and went about his morning routine. While he was getting dressed he eyed the Qini violin case. The case was vastly different from John’s dull black violin case. The violin case was an emerald green metal of some kind with an intricate grey design depicting a violin. John hadn’t tried to play it before out of fear of breaking the fragile instrument. If I’m really delicate with it then maybe I won’t break it. He finished dressing and took the Qini case and went to the theater.
What should I play on it? Nothing complicated… I’ll just do a scale, he thought as he gently opened the violin case and gasped slightly at the sight. It was indeed a violin in the case yet it was so much more ornate than his. The whole length of the black fingerboard seemed to be traced with what looked golden wood on the spots where the fingers were supposed to be placed on the board. Just how thoroughly did they analyze it! The body was a soft beige colour and shone brilliantly in the light. John ran his fingers on the varnished wood and found them eerily familiar. Fucking hell, if violins had an uncanny valley then this is it. The degree of similarity between the alien replica and the original unsettled John. He touched the bow hair and found it already sticky with rosin. They got everything down. John took out the violin and took up his position. He delicately placed a finger on the A string and played the note. Sweet Jesus this sounds good! It’s like I’m playing bird songs. John slowly played a C Major scale and airy song like notes rang out from the instrument. John wanted to try to get more volume out of the Qini instrument but dared not apply any more pressure on the bow. If I get a speaker and a microphone set up to this then all those slow pieces will sound fucking orgasmic. Man if I was weaker I’d be able to play more stuff on ya, he thought as he planned to make them on the nanoforge. He played more scales to get accustomed to the delicate melody. Hmmm… The fast one wouldn’t sound good on this. Too airy, not enough oomph… Kinda like the Qinis. He chuckled to himself at the joke.
“Is that the Qini violin? It doesn’t sound like your other one at all,” Regalo commented, almost causing John to snap the violin in two in surprise.
“We need to hang a bell around you, seriously ya scared the shit outa me.” Regalo chittered as he walked down and climbed on stage. “I don’t know how to explain it but if your violin was a strong Stoneback male then this one is most definitely a soft spoken sister who’s never bared a cub,” Regalo explained. I’m gonna guess the Stoneback dude is ripped and awesome. John nodded and replaced the violin in the case.
“Yeah it’s about as delicate as a female Gaoian too. I’m probably never gonna get used to how delicate it is for the fast pieces, but I can do slow soft pieces. Goddamn this thing will kick a Stradivarius’ ass on musicality, but it’s just not loud enough to matter. Can we make a microphone and speaker on the nanoforge?” Regalo sighed at the misnomer and answered:
“We can indeed but after I make them I’ll be busy making upgraded parts on it so I’ll be in the underbelly all day.”
John nodded as he closed the clasps on the Qini case and walked with Regalo to the common room. John returned to his room to stow away the delicate violin and returned to his seat at the couch. Regalo was picking out ingredients and the human sighed contently. John reached for his coms and turned on the news.
An immaculately dressed Qinis appeared on the screen.
“Welcome to the morning news. In today’s report the Dominion push into Celzi territory has been repelled. Many Celzi words have been reclaimed from the tyranny of Dominion rule. We move to Marla on one of the reclaimed worlds.”
The footage cut to a Celzi standing amongst a huge crowd.
“The ecstasy is palpable Romia as Celzi rejoice on the reclaimed worlds. The Celzi Triumvirate and the Qini Conglomerate are urging more people to enlist into the army to aid our brave brothers and sisters in arms. With this recent push back, enlistment has increased by 12 percent! Back to you Romia.”
The news carried on describing the war front situation as Vanima entered the common room.
“Good morning. John what happened to your violin? It sounded different and a lot quieter when I woke up. Did something break?” she asked as she began setting the table.
“John tried out the Qinis violin that Aran Morus made him,” Regalo explained as he kneaded the sweet dough.
“Yeah it was a lot airier, than mine and a lot quieter too. I’ll need to add more rosin to the bow to get more out of it,” John explained as he got up to help Vanima. They finished setting the table just before Regalo finished cooking. They sat at their usual seats and began eating.
“So do either of you have plans today?” Vanima asked as she cut her sweet dough with a knife and fork.
“I’m going to be doing upgrades and maintenance all day,” Regalo answered as he picked up the piece of sweet dough in his hand and tore at it, eating the smaller pieces.
“I’ve got nothing to do so what do ya have in mind?” John asked before he bit chunks out of the dough. Such boorish boys.
“I was wondering whether I could run you through some experiments.” Both men recoiled slightly at the word. Right! They’re both abductees!
“I mean I’ll be explaining to you everything I’m going to do and ask for you consent of course,” Vanima quickly added. John nodded and returned to munching away at the sweet dough with nutrition spheres mixed in. Regalo finished his meal and excused himself to go to the maintenance underbelly of The Lost Minstrel. John finished soon after and waited for Vanima. Well first I’ll need to examine that implant because it most certainly isn’t human made. Next I’ll do an overall scan of the brain and compare it to a Gricka’s, see what’s different, she thought as she finished her meal. They rose together and walked to the medical room.
“So Vanima, what exactly will you be testing?” John asked as they walked up the stairs.
“Well for starters I’m going to put you under anesthesia so I can operate on your neck. Every scan I’ve taken of you shows a foreign implant there so I want to make sure that it isn’t anything harmful to you. The surgery shouldn’t take too long. Secondly, I will run a scan of your brain while you’re still under anesthesia. When you wake up I might run you through a series of exercises. Do I have your consent to perform the following experiments?” she asked. It was more so a formality between the two than an actual request but it set John at ease to know what Vanima was doing.
“Hold up, there is a foreign implant in my neck?”
“There is but there have been no negative effects. The only anomaly in your body that I can’t just chalk up to you being a deathworlder is that the bacteria in your body aren’t reproducing correctly. Once they split off, the parent cell dies so the number of bacteria in your system always remains constant, and I think that implant has something to do with it,” she explained. John nodded as they arrived at the medical room.
“Alright if you’ll just wait outside while I prep the room for surgery,” Vanima instructed as she closed the door on John’s face. She disrobed down to her underwear and bra and donned on the loose blue scrubs of a surgeon the scanner chair provided. She put on her gloves and taped the ends shut along the sleeve cuffs of the scrubs. She put on her mask and tied her hair back before putting a cap on.
“Computer, prep room for surgery.” The ship beeped and all potentially harmful bacterial life was killed. She opened the door to let John in.
“Alright Doc, be gentle,” he joked as he sat in the scanning chair. Vanima adjusted it to the surgery position and John was lying on his back. She prepped a regular dose and injected in him. She stood there for an awkwardly long time before John said.
“I think you might need a bit more there bud.”
Vanima’s eyebrows knit together. Ok let’s try a double dose this time, but I’ll need to keep this safe. She prepped an injection of adrenaline and another injection of the anaesthetic. She administered the double dose and John merely looked drowsier. My word! How much more is it going to take! She decided to give him a quadruple dose and the human was finally put to sleep. 6 times the lethal dose! I’m going to run out of anaesthetics in a few days if it takes this much every time I want to cut him open, she thought as she set the scanner to keep track of John’s vitals. She smiled with a firm nod when the machine told her that the human was peacefully sleeping with no adverse effects from the anaesthetic. She moved the scanner closer to John’s neck to give her a detailed layout of the human’s neck, turning the display screen to face her. I’ll need to make an incision here to avoid the artery over there, but his muscles will pose the largest problem. If I make an incision there I could avoid the muscles entirely and come at it from underneath but I’ll be close to his windpipe. I’ll risk the windpipe and prep the adhesive gel if I accidentally strike it. She marked out with a pen the incision line and reached under the scanner chair raise up her surgical equipment. She rubbed disinfectant on the area out of habit. Not like anything here can even harm him. She covered the surrounding area in plastic as to avoid staining John’s clothes with blood. She struggled slightly to break the human’s skin but managed it. She put away the knife and used a small little rod to burn away at the fat. Once clear of the yellow substance, she used clamps to keep the area open enough to put her hands in. To see John’s muscles with her actual eyes as opposed to a picture on a tablet was a different experience. She traced her hand on the bloody tissue and could almost feel the raw deathly power contained within. The scanner told her that they had shrunk slightly since the last scan. Must be the low gravity atrophying them… I’ll need to test for his home planet’s gravity when we get to FTL. She slowly moved until she found the chip embedded between a pair of muscles. Vanima tried to pull it out delicately but simply lacked the strength. She brought the scanner closer to inspect the object directly now that the interference of John’s body was mostly moved out of the way. The readings showed up confirmed Vanima’s suspicions. That chip was administering the Corti frontline injection continually. It’ll weaken John’s immune system if I leave it in but if I take it out then this world will be a plague world by the time we perform. I’ll leave it in, not like his immune system can’t handle the pathogens we have. She pushed the scanner away and removed the clamps. She used adhesive gel to seal the incision and waited as the gel took on the colour of John’s skin. In a few days it’d be like there had never been a surgery. Shame we can’t afford some of the high-grade gel. She undid the tape around her gloves and disposed of them along with her mask. She took off her cap. I overestimated how long I’d be at it… she thought as she looked on John’s sleeping figure. She shrugged and turned the scanner to his brain and opened medical documents about a Gricka’s cerebral structure. The similarities between the two were striking. Their emotional faculties are practically the same so that’ll make it easy to guess what the other structures do. The general structure is the same but John’s is denser. His hand eye coordination and fine motor control are stupidly dense. She dismissed the Gricka’s brain structure from the screen, leaving only John’s brain. Wait… The initial scans did register high density, but it was certainly not this dense. The sheer amount of automation in his body! Does he even control his body or will it to move? She scribbled away in her notebook with her pen at possible theories and the various functions of John’s brain. After a good half hour, the scanner reported increased activity in some regions of the brain as John groaned.
“Hello John! You’ll be happy to know that the foreign implant doesn’t have any major negative impact on your health and you have a remarkable brain,” Vanima chirped as John propped himself up on his elbow. His hand reached for his neck but the gel had already begun mimicking John’s skin.
“Where are the stitches?” he asked as he swung his legs off of the table.
“Stitches? Your medicine must be very primitive if you’re still using that. I rubbed an adhesive gel to seal the wound. After a few days it’ll be finished and you won’t be able to tell a surgery ever happened. I couldn’t afford some of the fast acting ones that do it in a few hours but this does the same,” She explained as she walked around to help John. The human, mercifully, did not put much weight on Vanima as she helped him to his feet.
“God I had the best dream Vee.”
“Oh? Do tell.”
This could give me insight on his psychology.
John tiredly nodded as he managed to balance himself on his legs by himself.
“Yeah, I was eating some bacon. I freakin cried Vanima. It tasted so good.”
The anaesthetic must still be disrupting his systems.
“What is this ‘bay-con’?”
“A fucking blessing.” She slowly guided John to the common room where he could comfortably shake off the effects of the anesthetic. She laid him down on the couch and pulled up a chair from the kitchen to sit on.
“So John, I was wondering whether you could tell me about Dirt,” she asked.
“It was balls to the wall cool. I would high five a dude and his arm probably wouldn’t explode. Shit was rad,” the human deliriously responded before slowly falling asleep again. I need an interpreter to figure out what that meant. She thought as she flicked through her notes about the human’s biology. She sat there in silence, organizing her notes and deriving hypothesis from them. She paused to look at John. His chest rose and fell rhythmically. She reached out and gently fixed the human’s long jet black locks of hair. I wish I had hair like this, she thought as she delicately stroked the curly hair to place. I wonder if his people cut their hair? Surely having it this long isn’t beneficial. I’ll offer him a haircut when we go FTL. Oh! I hope he lets me style it. Hmm… Maybe if I give him bangs and gel the curls back. Such gifts wasted on the indifferent, she thought as she cycled through different haircuts she had seen male Qini wear. She resumed scribbling away at her notebook, this time sketching out different styles for John. It was another hour of sketching before John woke up.
“Good afternoon John. How are you feeling?”
“Freakin refreshed,” he sighed
She smiled and shook her head at the human. John slowly rose and sat up straight on the couch.
“Also I figured out what I’m gonna play at the concert.”
Vanima raised an eyebrow. “Oh? Are you going to practice them?” Please practice before hand, she secretly hoped.
“Nah, I got it covered.”
6y 8m 3w 3d BV
Vanima waited impatiently at the ship door. She wore her finest black dress and had her raven hair done in a lace braid. It was a good hour past sundown and the Celzi should be arriving around now. So why are they not here! She silently fumed. Although the lights were on at the door and illuminated the pathway, Vanima’s evolutionary past as a nocturnal creature gave her excellent night vision. After a few more minutes of waiting some Celzi began arriving.
“Hello and welcome to The Lost Minstrel. We do hope you enjoy tonight’s performance,” she told them with a smile as she handed them a program. More and more Celzi arrived until all 50 programs were handed out. She followed the last one in and closed the door behind her. The ship hallway, usually sparse and empty, was decorated with a simply red carpet that led to the concert hall. She walked to the hall and saw Regalo dressed (against his will) in suit analogous to a Qini suit, registering the concertgoers’ tickets at the concert hall door. Vanima walked to the common room and entered the backstage. She saw John in his green shimmering shirt and black trousers with his violin out and ready.
“Break a leg!” The human whispered to her much to her confusion. She walked out with a microphone.
“Welcome gentlebeings to The Lost Minstrel. We have a lovely line up for you tonight. Our performer, John Ash, will be playing to you songs from his home planet Dirt. Now, without further ado John Ash!” She walked off to the left of the stage as John entered from the right.
He took up his position, clicked play on his backing music, and began playing a lilting tune.
Vanima closed her eyes and swayed as John played. Soon after a second violin seemed to play. Although she knew it was probably from the recorder she imagined a second John playing the instrument. Where as the original John was a short human with shaggy curly black hair and a perpetual twinkle in his eyes this one was sleek and tall with his hair groomed and cut. The melody filled with harmony but unlike the other songs. Whereas the others would crash into her mind like monstrous waves of emotions this one seemed content in pointing out the peace already within. She felt the placidity within her well up and slowly wipe away all her other emotions, good and bad. She swayed to and fro like the ancient ships of old sailing gentle seas. When the piece ended she could hear rapturous applause.
When they died down John began playing a second piece. It sounded beautiful yet Vanima was far from at ease. The haunting melody permeated through the concert hall. The sense of loss and loneliness stalked her mind like anguished spirits. How can such beauty be filled with so much hurt? She fought back the tears that welled up in her eyes. The piece almost seemed aware of the feelings it raised and moved to comforted the Qinis. Her ears twitched at the faint keening sound the Gaoian let out beside her. She reached out and stroked Regalo’s silky fur as the piece was brought. Applause this time was somewhat gutted compared to the last piece. She opened her eyes and found John unfazed by the lackluster response of the Celzi.
He prepared himself one final time and played. This was a radical shift in tone from the last two. The melody was practically bursting forth, jumping and fighting. She could almost imagine John leading the charge of the battle that decided the Dom Al war, although which side he was fighting for she wasn’t sure. This is possibly the best song he’s played so far, she thought as she lightly danced along to the tune. She could see the melody invigorating the audience as they felt the powerful surge of the melody storm forth from the wooden instrument. The piece came to a crashing end, eliciting a standing ovation.
John bowed and left the stage. Vanima almost forgot to go back onto the stage. She promptly walked out on stage and bowed before the audience.
“Thank you for coming to our show. I hope your journeys home are safe and quick.” With that the Celzi began filing out of the Concert Hall.
John sighed as he packed away his violin.
“That was a stellar performance as usual John,” Regalo praised him as he patted the human’s back.
“Yeah but they really didn’t like that second one.”
Regalo waved his hand dismissively. “It was still a beautiful melody if a bit eerie.” The pair rose up and met Vanima on the stage in the empty Concert Hall.
“Wonderful playing John! We made a grand total of…” she paused as she did the conversion in her head, “10 DCs. A fair haul if I say so myself.” She smiled and patted John on the back.
“Alright let’s get going to the bridge because I want to get a move on as soon as possible,” John ordered and the trio walked up to the bridge.
Vanima sat at the captain’s chair and John took his seat at the nav unit. Regalo went to the FTL terminal and projected the star map.
“Alright, 2 paths are open to us. We can go through the active warzone over there and it would take us around a month with no stops, or we could circle around the active warzone to that string of deathworlds. Both sides usually avoid deathworlds if they can, but this way will take us 3 months.” The aliens turned to John and the human scratched his beard. I can’t risk them in a warzone and God knows I’m not a good enough pilot to help us in a dogfight.
“We’ll take the deathworld route.”