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disseminate through the net works carrying certain voices of reason."
    Kappa says slowly, "Would these be voices of reason arguing the case for orbital aliens?"
    "Yep."
    "Then we're on your side."
    The Einstein3 dude emerges from his hut and they all sit on the sand. "In which direction is your research going?" he asks.
    Nulight replies, "We know the invasion has started. Man, I've seen the lights myself, right on top of Glastonbury Tor, and you don't get a clearer sight than that. Except maybe from Avebury. I dunno. Anyway, the main thing is the semi-autonomous music at the Gesang Der Junglinge, you know it?"
    "Of course."
    "That music's been infiltrated by the aliens. They're gonna use it to control us all."
    Einstein3 nods like a sage. "This is the kernel concept of my own research. Have you noticed anything unusual about the new music?"
    "What, auton?"
    "Yep."
    "Lotsa stuff. I ain't into it, man, I'm more an ambient head. A loose tripper."
    Einstein3 nods and smiles. After a pause he says, "Auton music is the first Western music not based on the even tempered scale. This is as revolutionary a concept as nineties rave, that was stripped of all lyrics, and even melody. But auton is completely different. It sounds so new, so different, so refreshing almost, because of this departure from the even tempered scale."
    "That ain't nothing new," Nulight contends, "'cos globo was based on ethnic trance, and ethnic is basically an oriental medium, not using Western—"
    "Ah, but it did! Globo did use the even tempered scale, because all the classic globo sounds were sampled and tweaked to fit Western sensibilities."
    "Hey, but they weren't. There were some massive Indian steals, man, and you can't tell me you can sample a whole Indian riff and tweak it Western."
    Einstein3 takes a deep breath, then replies, "All right, I grant you that some globo pieces were based on non-Western scales, but those were, as you said, giant samples, maybe a minute in length, more sometimes. They don't count because they were at the esoteric end of the market and we can count them as special cases."
    "I don't see your point, man."
    "That's because I haven't quite got to it yet. My thesis is that auton is totally new and different, and there's got to be a reason for that. So I set to analysing modern music with a software package called Messiaen—"
    "After the composer?"
    "The birdsong melody man himself. Once I'd created the environment for the software, downloading the even tempered scale and then all the other scales that there are in the world—every one, right?—I sat down to see if Messiaen could fit any of the auton tunes in the current Billboard Top 100 to these scales."
    Kappa whispers, "And none of them do fit?"
    "Not one!" Einstein3 says, slapping his hands upon the sand. "Not one. Unique! The obvious conclusion is that auton music is not a human creation. It follows no known pitch progression. I even took Harry Partch's forty three notes to the octave scale and tried that, but auton is different still."
    Nulight understands the implications of all this. A terrible fear wells up inside him, starting in his stomach then rising to his breastbone, making him breathe out, out hard, then sit upright and clutch the hand of Kappa. He says, "Then I was right. This is the proof. The aliens have mutated Dieter's semi-autonomous music, and one offshoot is the new auton music. They're setting up the conditions for their invasion. Man, don't you see? This is an alien scale that auton uses. We're listening to the musical consciousness of aliens, man. We're listening to their soul!"
    "You got it," Einstein3 remarks.
    Nulight is completely freaked out. He stares up at the sky. They are there! They are sending down their spirits for us to listen to and we are just taking it all in, consuming it like babies, unaware of what is happening!
    Nulight tries to control himself. He want to scream, run, tell everybody, scream some more, and most of all get himself