The Song Of Sqia'lon Seven, by Jon Brain



Have you ever heard music in the winter trees in your home? I have.


When winter comes on my world, the trees freeze solid. It's not all that cold, but my forest is different from your forest. It's a very old forest, and many of the trees died many years ago. When I look out my bedroom window, I only see the once proud husks of those trees. In summertime, I sometimes worry that they might catch fire and go ablaze. There is so much kindling in that old forest. But it hasn't burned yet.


In wintertime, the storms come. They always start with rain. Rain that tilts down sideways and coats the entire forest with clear water. Rain is how it begins. But you see, it's much colder down here in the valley than it is in the sky. That's what my Papa told me in the old days. He said that's why the rain all turns to silver glass when it lands all about the forest and coats the all the trees as if they were so many candlesticks dipped in wax. Silver, clear wax.


And you see, after it rains, the winds drop. They turn to a small breeze that barely ruffles the stray hairs about my face and the fur that lines the outside of my hood. That's when the most wonderful thing happens.


Have you ever blown over the lid of a glass water bottle? Do you remember the sound? How it hummed below you? How the sound reverberated through the empty glass shell, bouncing into itself over and over until it gathered itself together and clawed out of the neck and up to your ears? Do you remember what that sounded like? Now, can you imagine that sound, but coming out of the empty shell of a hollow tree frozen by the rains? Can you hear the deep, soulful hum of the tree as it mourns the passing of its forest long ago? Can you imagine the way the sound waves shake the entire forest and disturb the icy shards still coagulated to the dead branches and pine needles,covering them like a second set of bark? The light twinkling sigh of ice shaken loose from the trees? The soft clink as it shatters against the ice coating the ground beneath?


I can.


Because I've heard it.




Only the hollow trees make the music. I found every one of them. Each has its own name, and there's a spirit in every one of them. There's Papa Nathan, who's the biggest and oldest of all of them. He was a great thick Red Oak in his day, but he fell in half and got chewed out by beetles. His voice is a majestic, rumbling bass that shakes the very earth. And Mama Gina is a Sqia'lon Maple. She's the mama because her voice harmonizes with Papa's so well. Papa sings a low-low G, and Mama sings a low A. Then there's Peter, he's the nice son who sings a low D. Alice is a shy cousin. She only sings every once in a while. She is an E. Papa has two brothers who try to follow his G, but they're both a little bit flat. I try not to tell them, so as to not hurt their feelings.


And then there's Uncle Ian. I don't know what's wrong with him. Like Alice, I don't hear him very often. But when I do, the song changes. He sings very loudly, and it's a nasally, discordant note. I finally realized that it was a C#. Maybe, if you know music you can hear the chord in your head. It isn't pretty when Uncle Ian sings. He has a fine voice on his own, but it clashes so with the rest of the family. I wish he wouldn't.




When I found Papa, he welcomed me into his family. I feel so at home with him and the others in the wintertime, when they're singing. Sometimes I visit them all in a single day, except Uncle Ian of course, and sometimes I spend all day with just Papa or Mama, because they're the closest ones to my cabin and the ice does become difficult to manage. And I listen to the music fill the forest with life.


I visit them in summertime too. They don't sing then, and most of the trees around them are dead. But I still visit them, and talk to them,and tell them about myself. I especially do that in summer when they can't sing back to me. It's the very least that I can do, since they're all so kind to me in the winter.


Once I told Peter about my Papa. "He's not here anymore, you know," I told him. "My Papa had to go away a long time ago. I don't know where he went." I was braiding a knot of spider moss that grew between Peter's roots. I think he likes it when I do that. "He said that Earth needed him to fly starships. We came here on a starship you know."


Peter didn't know what a starship was. I don't remember ours very well either, so it was hard to tell him. Papa said it came from some place called Sol. "It's a star," he said, "And it's right up there!" I remember him pointing to the sky. But I couldn't tell which star he was pointing at.


"Papa told me that Terra Navy had reenacted the draft," I told Peter."That's when you have to go serve in a warship because there's a war and the Commonwealth needs you. But don't worry, tree spirits can't be drafted," I said to reassure him, even though I wasn't really sure about that. Little girls can't be drafted; my Papa told me that. If little girls can't be drafted, I didn't see why tree spirits could be.


I told cousin Alice about my Mama. "I haven't seen her for a longtime either," I told her. "She wasn't drafted like Papa was. But she was very sad. She said there would never be enough food to last to the end of the war, and they didn't have any farms in twenty miles of the cabin. She didn't know how long our food was going to last. That's what happens when you fall behind enemy lines," I told Alice, because apparently that's true. "You can't get as much food as you used to. So, Mama went away to get more food. She said she'd be gone for a few days. But I haven't seen her for a longtime either."


You poor child! I thought I heard Alice whisper. You're out here all by yourself? For how long?


"Well,I haven't seen Mama since before I met all of you," I told her.


I'm so sorry, she said. And do you know, I think that she must have really felt very sorry for me,because at that moment she dropped a limb from the branches above. I twas hollow like she was, bored through by insects and smooth like rocks in a stream. I picked up the limb and held it to my eye and saw a nearly perfect circle inside. And do you know what? It made the same music when I blew through it. It sounded like Alice herself, and she had given it to me.


"Oh, thank you cousin Alice," I squealed with delight and ran away as quickly as I could. I know it isn't polite, but I was just so excited, you see? Because I had plans for this hollow stick in my hands. But I felt her sad eyes follow me as I left for home.




I had many tools in my cabin. My Mama and Papa brought many tools with them when we came to Sqia'lon. Papa said that we would need them, since it's a frontier world and all. I don't know what frontier means, only that you need lots of extra tools and food to live there. I still have lots of food, though I'm starting to have as many empty spaces in the pantry as full ones.


The tools I need are kept in a special box on the top shelf. I climbed up onto the stainless-steel countertop and pulled the box down to the counter beside me. It's a heavy box, but I've been carrying a lot of heavy things since Mama went away. The generator needed to be filled quite often in the wintertime even though I can get by just fine in my winter coat, because I did need to cook sometimes.


Inside the box were Papa's old power tools. I took the drill out and fitted a thick bit to the end. Then I drilled six holes into the hollow stick. Then I stuck up one end and blew over a seventh hole in the top. It took me quite a while to cut the stick to the right length so that it sounded right. I don't know if you've ever tried to make a musical instrument out of water glasses; finding exactly the right depth isn't always easy. Well, I had this same problem. I had to sand down the end of the stick, gradually, carefully, and testing it with a little blow across the top each time. The bottom note, when all the holes were covered, had to match Papa Nathan's bass hum, except several octaves higher, of course. Then was Peter's D, and Mama Gina's A and Cousin Alice's E. This one I wanted to be just right, because Cousin Alice gave it to me and all.


It took me days to get it right. I forgot to eat sometimes. I don't know why. My Mama told me to make sure to eat big healthy meals every day.I promised her I would be good and eat everything she laid out for me while she was gone, even the vegetables, although I don't really like them. But even after, when I had to take the cans and bags out of the pantry, I tried to still do what she told me. I even got out new packages of vegetables. I wasn't always good about it though, even though I tried.


When I was done, I ran back out to Cousin Alice to show her what I'd done, and I played to her for the rest of the afternoon. The next day, I showed Papa Nathan and Mama Gina and Peter, and Papa's brothers. The only one I didn't visit was Uncle Ian, because he wasn't on my flute, and I didn't want him to be mad at me.




When winter came, I waited dreamily for the first rains to fall so I could play with my spirits in the trees. I'd gotten rather good at my flute and I couldn't wait to show them. I couldn't be as loud as they could; when Papa sings, he shakes the trees themselves. But I was still loud on my own; the flute that I made didn't shake the forest, but the sound it sang bounced about through the trees, leaping like a squirrel from branch to branch.


When at last they came, and I once again heard the piping sound fill the air in the night. I dressed quickly, with a smile upon my face the whole time, and pulled boots onto my feat. I ran out with my flute in hand to join them.


I closed my eyes. For a long while I just listened to the song of the spirits. Simple, it was, but pure and true, like a little child that tells you that she loves you for helping her mend a toy. The song swelled and fell away when the wind changed. Alice came and went from the song as the wind reached her, sometimes fulfilling the cord, and sometimes dropping away so she could resolve it again. I smiled as I listened.


Once when the wind died away again, I lifted the flute to my lips and blew gently across it. The sound joined my family in the woods, melted among them, resonated alongside them.


For a long time, we played together, my spirit family and I. What did we play? Well, you have our cord. My forest family played that, with Uncle Ian thankfully silent and Cousin Alice joining occasionally as the wind rose and fell. Then my flute rose and fell between the pillars laid down by the trees, dancing like leaves, or like crowning flames upon them, filling in the melodies and harmonizing and synchronizing with the trees, sometimes in a minor key and sometimes in a major.


It was a beautiful song, even though I messed up a lot. But I can't tell you what it was; it was so long ago and I can no longer remember. Besides, what could I tell you on a page to match the sound of that day? Words are hollow at best, and they cannot be a song.




It all came to a stop when the wind changed. Suddenly, the breeze shifted. Cousin Alice had been singing, but she fell silent. And Uncle Ian's voice suddenly filled my forest and broke the song we had been singing.


I dropped my flute and scowled. Uncle Ian had just ruined my perfect day and the beautiful song I had been playing with the rest of my forest family. I was so angry that I stomped my foot and said a bad word.


"Darn you Uncle Ian!" I yelled. But he kept singing, so loud, and so out of key. The beautiful song gone sour. The cord turned discordant and vile, like food that's gone bad left out overnight.


But that was also the moment that I realized that I was no longer alone in my woods.




It sat there below my ridge, looking at me. I couldn't tell you what manner of creature it was. Have you ever seen the dogs in those cartoons that they used to make on earth? With the rolling tongues, human-like eyes, and a perpetual grin that makes you think that it might one day achieve sentience? Not the way real Earth dogs do, but in that exaggerated cartoony way that make you fall in love with the animated characters as if they were the same as the human characters?This creature had a face like that. For now, it just sat there, watching me with amber eyes that reflected the dying light of the Sqia'lon star. Its body seemed hardly to exist in this light. Covered from head to toe with glossy black hair, it blended into the shimmering black ice of the forest floor beneath it. Clawed fingers splayed out beneath it at the end of its lanky forelegs, cutting into the ice for grip. I suppose, have you ever seen an Earth flying squirrel? Take that image and supplant it with a dog's body. Then give it opposable thumbs and long arms, and you'll have an idea of the creature that sat entranced before me.


I watched it for a long moment. Then, the creature, whatever it was, barked. My nerve broke and I scrambled up and ran as best I could into the forest, away from the creature.


I don't remember how long I ran, only that it was a long time. I never saw the... whatever it was following me, but the sound it made when it barked and the way it had looked up at me through its luminous amber eyes had filled me with a sudden terror I hadn't felt in a long time. So I ran, ever afraid of its specter behind me, all the while Uncle Ian filling the whole forest with his horrid, discordant song.


Iran until suddenly I stopped short. I was face to face with Uncle Ian himself.


He looked down at me with a stern ire, clearly unhappy with the way that I had treated him. I felt sudden shame wash over me as I remembered that I hadn't put him on my flute. I remember the way my eyes filled with tears as I looked up at him, afraid of him for his song, but more afraid for my very life.


"Please, Uncle Ian," I said to him. "I'm frightened. I'm sorry I hated you. I need to hide now, or the thing might get me. Please."


I shivered when Uncle Ian sang again. But I heard another noise, too,and this was the sound of claws scrabbling on the icy floor. The creature had followed me, and had found me here.


I dove for the nearby bushes next to Uncle Ian. They were still covered in ice. I scrambled behind them and hid from the creature, pulling my knees up to my face and holding my breath in case it made a difference. I never realized that I had hidden upwind of the beast, and there was very little chance that it couldn't find me if it had wanted to.


But it didn't want to. When it rounded the corner, it whined unhappily. It's pointy, cat-like ears dropped as it looked up at Uncle Ian. I watched it through the branches of my hiding place as it whined and pulled itself into a tiny form, as if afraid or unsettled by something.


What was it afraid of? Did it realize that Uncle Ian was discordant too?


Finally, it leapt. I lost sight of it for a moment, and I let it be gone for a moment, afraid to move. But I saw it again when I moved my eyes up to follow it as it climbed the icy trunk of Uncle Ian. Soon, it was at the top. And then, it began to claw at the trunk. It kicked and tore at it, tearing the crumbling wood away from the hollow stalk. I watched it claw with open mouth. And do you know, something changed. Suddenly, Uncle Ian's voice began to shift. It was a slow shift, and it happened in increments as the creature tore it to pieces. But the song changed. Finally, the dog creature stopped, and Uncle Ian's voice was a D. No longer a discordant C sharp, but a beautiful D, almost the same as Peter's, but an octave higher. The song was beautiful again.




The creature jumped from the top of the tree and glided down from the treetop and alighted where it had been before. It looked up and panted happily, its ears standing back up.


I caught my breath. The creature must feel the same about the music as me. A creature that could hear the music couldn't want to eat me, could it? A creature that had fixed the forest's song had to be a loving creature like me, hadn't it?


I stepped out of my hiding place, one hand clenched tightly around my flute. The creature's eyes twisted back to me and I saw it stand backup upon its hind legs and watch me. I stopped short. I wasn't sure what to do, but then again, neither did the dog thing.


Finally, I lifted my flute from my side. I placed it to my mouth and blew a short melody through it. The creature, whatever it was, straightened up and its amber eyes shot open. I kept playing, and the music melded once again with the full cord of the trees.


The creature stood. It stepped tentatively towards me, its claws scrabbling against the ice for grip. I stayed as still as I could and kept playing, because it seemed to like the sound. Finally, it stood right before me. It sat back on its hindquarters and watched, entranced, as I played to it. I shivered, partially from the growing cold and partly from a lingering fear of the creature. But this was quickly fading.


I remember dogs from Earth. My Papa had had one once, before we had left for Sqia'lon Seven. It had been a golden retriever called Hailey. Older than me, it had been my Papa's dog from his late adolescence. I think he had wanted to take her with us when we left for Sqia'lon, but she was old by the time we left. He said that she would have been a good member of the family to have; faithful and caring, she had liked me especially. It was like we were sisters, despite the difference in species.


This creature before me might have been Hailey's spirit. It looked nothing like our old retriever, but it behaved in a way that reminded me of the old dog. There was something of old Hailey in its eyes, more the shape than the color, and in the way it tilted its head to one side as it let the music float through its ears. I decided I could trust it, at least a little. After all, I had my tree spirits; why not a golden retriever spirit?


The creature laid down in front of me and put its muzzle on its front claws. It was becoming more and more difficult to see her in the gathering gloom; the Sqia'lon sun had set a long time ago behind the Eastward mountains. I dropped the flute from my lips and smiled down at it.


"I'll call you Hailey," I said in a whisper.




The dark was gathering around us. I could see that it was the coming of night. So, I gripped my flute and stepped gingerly around the creature.


Hailey's head shot up instantly, and a displeased growl emanated from deep inside her chest. I nearly jumped out of my skin, and it was everything I could do to keep from running away again.


"I need to go home," I told Hailey with a shiver. But she didn't listen, and growled again.


I raised my flute back to my lips and began to play again through the flute. But now, the creature didn't like the sound, even though nothing had changed. It growled again, and this time barked. Now, I really was afraid.


"Please, let me go home," I whimpered.


But this time, Hailey didn't growl. Instead, she whimpered back, and she began to nudge me with her head. Not towards home, but back, back past where Uncle Ian stood and deeper into the forest. I had never been much deeper than Uncle Ian's little grove, but now Hailey seemed to be forcing me that way.


I said, "No, I need to go to my home," wondering if it might be trying to take me to its home out of confusion. But she ignored me and continued to nuzzle me, trying to get me to go deeper into the woods.


"But I need food," I protested again.


Hailey was becoming very agitated. She was beginning to growl again, and it scared me. Suddenly, it reached up with its opposable forelegs and grabbed me tiny hand with its furry hand and began to drag me, hopping and crawling, into the underbrush beyond, and the darkness. I followed, reluctantly at first but more determinedly then, because Hailey was in such a hurry. On and on we went, Hailey leading me on by my hand and lolloping forward with such purpose that I had to almost wonder if it had some otherworldly purpose guiding it. But all the while, my hunger grew, and with it the fear that Hailey was leading me to a trap, or to an awaiting den of hungry pups.




At last, I could take it no longer. I wrenched my hand away from the creature and planted my feet firmly upon the ground.


"No," I said. "I won't go farther. I need to go home where it'swarm."


Hailey stopped and whimpered again. In the dusk, I could barely see her, but the sound was so pathetic and soulful that I stopped. But I was determined.


"I'm sorry," I told her. "I have to go."


Suddenly,Hailey reached out and snatched my flute out of my hand. She put it to her lips and blew out a note. I guess I should have been amazed that a creature of her ilk had ever deduced how to play a flute. But I felt a sudden rage build up inside me, the rage of a child who has been wronged by the world.


"Hey!" I shouted. "That's mine! Give it back!"


But Hailey did not give it back. Instead, she retreated with it further into the darkness, the same way she had been pulling me. And I gave chase, furious, ignorant of the ice and the danger, incensed only to retrieve my treasured possession.




I followed for a long time. Hailey, though well attuned to the woods and the night, always seemed just a few meters ahead of me. Sometimes I would lose my bearings and stop, but when I did, I would hear suddenly the sound of her whimper or my flute, egging me onwards into the blackened forest. Where was it leading me? I did not know. My forest family sang in the darkness behind me, now little more than a memory and the breath of the wind.


Soon, I had lost all bearings. I didn't know where I had come from or where I was going. I didn't know what lay behind or ahead. I stopped short again. I looked around at the foreign woods, alone, no family, no forest family, no retriever spirit, not even my flute. My stomach growled.


At last, it was too much. I burst out with tears of fear and pain. I would die out here. I would die...


My tears dropped upon the frozen forest floor. They shattered and froze quickly, like the rains themselves before. I dropped to my knees and wept.


Suddenly, I felt Hailey's soft muzzle nudging me again. I heard her whimper int he dark. I felt her hand take mine and attempt to drag me further forward. But I wouldn't go.


"Go away Hailey," I said to it, and curled up into a ball upon the forest floor.


Hailey again nudged me, urgently, with a desperate whimper. She dropped my flute in my arms and again nuzzled me. I felt its fear. But I had gone all I could go that night. Sleep beckoned, and opened its arms wide to receive me.


Before I embraced sleep, I felt fur encircle me as I lay upon the forest floor, and a soft muzzle rest upon my chin. Hailey had chosen to stay. I had just a moment to wonder at it as I drifted away.




And what happened then? Well, the only impression I can muster of what must have been the next several days is one of being held. By what or by whom? Not a human, certainly, the hands that held me were too big.Besides, most of the humans left rather than weather the occupation. So, who was holding me? I'm not sure. I like to think it was Uncle Ian, or maybe Papa Nathan himself. Probably just a dream brought on by fever. I caught something very bad that night, lying out in the frozen forest with only a coat and a retriever spirit for warmth. So, it could have been a dream. But I don't like to think of it that way.




I woke up in a human medical facility. I was back on a starship, and my Mama, my real Mama, was there. Even Papa was there, back from his warship.


And laid on a bed beside me was a small wooden flute carved from a hollow tree branch.


The Saragos war had ended some time ago. Mama had been caught on Sqia'lon and deported by conquerors according to the treaty. I was overlooked by Mith authorities (I must have been in the woods that day) and allowed to live on in the family's cabin until I had been found, alone, in the woods, by a couple of alien colonists. They had contacted the Commonwealth immediately and my parents had come of a small starship to pick me up. It must have taken ever credit they had to make the second trip to Sqia'lon seven. Mama and Papa held me for a long time and cried, and I cried too. It had been so long that I had almost forgotten them, but they were here now, and they would never leave me alone again.


"Was I alone when they found me?" I asked.


"Yes,sweetheart, and half frozen to death," Mama said. "It was a miracle you weren't frozen solid."


"Then where did Hailey go?" I asked. Mama looked at me blankly.


"Hailey died back on Earth," she said.


"No,but her spirit was with me," I insisted.


But she didn't know what I meant.




Along time after, I visited Sqia'lon Seven again. It was after the peace was made in one of the later wars. I made sure that I came in winter so I could meet my tree spirits as an adult with all the knowledge and experience that comes with age. I wondered if I would see Hailey again. But I didn't think so. You see, in all my years afterward, I searched every database I could find for references to a Sqia'lon animal like her, but I never found one. No one, human or alien, had ever seen anything like it before or since.


I know this, though. If she hadn't led me into the woods that night, I never would have been found by those aliens and returned home. I was almost out of food. I wouldn't have left my forest family. I never would have found my real family again if not for Hailey.




But the trees; the trees were still there. They still sing after all these years. Only now, they sing all in key, and the cord is full and bright. 

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