The Metallic Muse Read Online Free PDF Page A

until you’re ready.” She nodded and walked away. A red-faced spacer near the platform looked up at the revealed outline of her young body and leered. Fascinated, Baque studied the coarse, demanding lust in his face and searched the keyboard to express it. This? Or— this? Or— He had it. He felt himself caught up in the relentless rhythm. His foot tightened on the volume control, and he turned to watch the customers. Every pair of eyes stared hypnotically at his corner of the room. A bartender stood at a half crouch, mouth agape. There was uneasiness, a strained shuffling of feet, a restless scraping of chairs. Baque’s foot dug harder at the volume control. His hands played on hypnotically, and he stared in horror at the scene that erupted below him. Lasciviousness twisted every face. Men were on their feet, reaching for the women, clutching, pawing. A chair crashed to the floor, and a table, and no one noticed. A woman’s dress fluttered crazily downward, and the pursued were pursuers while Baque helplessly allowed his fingers to race onward, out of control. With a violent effort he wrenched his hands from the keys, and the ensuing silence crashed the room like a clap of thunder. Fingers trembling, Baque began to play softly, indifferently. Order was restored when he looked again, the chair and table were upright, and the customers were seated in apparent relaxation except for one woman who struggled back into her dress in obvious embarrassment. Baque continued to play quietly until the girls returned. At six A.M., his body wracked with weariness, his hands aching, his legs cramped, Baque climbed down from the multichord. Lankey stood waiting for him. “Class One rates,” he said. “You’ve got a job with me as long as you want it. But take it a little easy with that stuff, will you?” Baque remembered Val, alone in their dreary apartment and eating synthetic food. “Would I be out of order to ask for an advance?” “No,” Lankey said. “Not out of order. I told the cashier to give you a hundred on your way out. Call it a bonus.” Weary from his long conveyer ride, Baque walked quietly into his dim apartment and looked about. There was no sign of Val—she would still be sleeping. He sat down at his own multichord and touched the keys. He felt awed and humble and disbelieving. Music without Coms, without words, could make people laugh and cry, and dance and cavort madly. And it could turn them into lewd animals. Wonderingly he played the music that had incited such unconcealed lust, played it louder, and louder— And felt a hand on his shoulder, and turned to look into Val’s passion-twisted face. He asked Hulsey to come and hear him that night, and later Hulsey sat slumped on the cot in his room and shuddered. “It isn’t right. No man should have that power over people. How do you do it?” “I don’t know,” Baque said. “I saw that young couple sitting there, and they were happy, and I felt their happiness. And as I played everyone in the room was happy. And then another couple came in quarreling, and the next thing I knew I had everyone mad.” “Almost started a fight at the next table,” Hulsey said. “And what you did after that—“ ”Yes. But not as much as I did last night. You should have seen it last night.“ Hulsey shuddered again. ”I have a book about ancient Greek music,“ Baque said. ”They had something they called ethos. They thought that the different musical scales affected people in different ways—could make them sad, or happy, or even drive them crazy. They claimed that a musician named Orpheus could move trees and soften rocks with his music. Now listen. I’ve had a chance to experiment, and I’ve noticed that my playing is most effective when I don’t use the filters. There are only two filters that work on that multichord anyway—flute and violin—but when I use either of them the people don’t react so strongly. I’m wondering if maybe the effects the