Aurora in Four Voices Read Online Free PDF

plane parallel to the base defines a chord and each facet touching the plane is a note in that chord. To play the fugue, start at the bottom and move to the top."
    "Is height a discrete or continuous variable?"
    "Continuous." Only a computer could do it. Human musicians would have to take planes at discrete heights. If the intervals between the planes were small enough, the human version approached the computer version. But the fugue only truly became what he intended when the distance between planes was so small that for all practical purposes it went to zero.
    "Facets with one ridge are played by a spherical-harmonic baritone harp," he said. "Two ridges is tenor, three alto, and four soprano. Loudness is linear with glitter thickness, from pianissimo to fortissimo. Tempo is linear with the frequency of the light corresponding to the glitter color." He tapped a beat on the console. "Red." He increased the tempo. "Violet."
    "Data entered," Treble said. "Any other specifications?"
    "No." Then, realizing he would have to see Soz's reaction to the music, Jato said, "Yes. Lower the room lights to fifteen percent."
    The lights dimmed, leaving them in dusky blue shadows. It was too dark to see Soz's face clearly.
    A deep note sounded, the rumbling of a baritone harp. After several measures of baritone playing alone, tenor joined in with the same melody, mellow and smooth. Alto came next and soprano last, as sweet as the dawn.
    Treble shaped the music far more tenderly than the generic program he used in the library. Yes, that was it, the minor key there, that progression, that arpeggio. Treble had it right. At the bird's arching neck, soprano soared into a shimmering coloratura. Notes flowed over them, radiant and painful, too bright to endure for long. The other harps came in like an undertow, pulling soprano beneath their deeper melodies. At the head of the bird, soprano burst free again, a fountain of sound.
    Yes. Treble had it. Treble knew.
    Gradually the music slowed, sliding over the outstretched wings above the bird. Finally only baritone rumbled in the glimmering wake of soprano's fading glory. The last notes vibrated in the alcove and died.
    Jato stood frozen, afraid to move lest it rouse Soz to reveal her reaction. Yet the silence was also unbearable. What did she think? That was him in that music, the vulnerable part, without barriers or protections.
    Her head was turned toward the console, so he saw only her profile. A glimmer showed on her cheek. Something was sliding down her face.
    He touched the tear. "Why are you crying?"
    "It's so beautiful." She looked up at him. "So utterly sad and utterly beautiful."
    Beautiful. She thought his music was beautiful. He tried to answer, make a joke or something, but nothing came out. So he drew her into his arms and laid his cheek on top her head.
    She didn't pull away. Instead she put her arms around his waist and held him. The fresh scent of her newly washed hair wafted around him. Softly she said, "What place do you like best in Nightingale?"
    "The Promenade."
    "Will you take me there?"
    He swallowed. "Yes."

3. The Giant's Rib
    Bathed in starlight, the west edge of the plateau dropped into the jagged immensity of the Giant's Skeleton Mountains. Its crevices cut deep into the planet's crust, the tormented remains of a planetoid impact that had brutalized Ansatz in a long-vanished eon. Spires jutted up like skeletal fingers on walls between the chasms.
    Natural bridge formations tried to span the kilometers-deep fissures, but most spans were incomplete, their broken ends hanging in the air.
    The plateau itself claimed one of the few unbroken bridges. The Promenade. It rose up from the plateau's southern corner, spanned its length, and ended high in the northern cliffs. Two kilometers long and averaging only two meters wide, the bridge curved out from the plateau over a great chasm. Spires on the chasm walls supported it with columns of rock.
    The Dreamers had tooled the