The Songs That Rime

A short story about a colony in space, which brings itself to destruction

THE  SONGS  THAT RIME

“… we’ll be able to understand what he says next time round when we catch the whole message”, said professor Victor Wiseman to the pensive commander John Darrow. His voice reverberated on the walls of the huge auditorium as if it came from many places at once. Victor, as always with his thinning hair disheveled, had that rare look of exasperation in his face as he looked around the chamber. Gone was that childish exuberance that he so often exhibited when he came across new discoveries and new challenges during the long voyage through space on “The Intrepid”, visiting the hundreds of colonies from Earth.

                “Alright Victor, at least we’ll  learn something, perhaps the reason for all this!”, said Darrow, showing around the vast auditorium with his hand.  Dr. Helen Russ had remained silent all this time, her beautiful features contorted from the anguish she must have been feeling. Alan Custer, the pilot, was unusually quiet as well, trying to come to terms with what he saw around him.

                The Intrepid had entered the “Artemis” solar system in the constellation “Lira” a fortnight before and the computer scan had shown indications of major catastrophe from the fifth planet of the system and commander Darrow had decided to have a closer look. A reconnaissance party of four had landed the landing module  on the northern hemisphere of the planet, where the colony of five thousand was, to ascertain what had happened.

                Recurrent appeared once again in the vast auditorium as if from nowhere. He stepped behind the pulpit and with an air of respect took his hat off. He cleared his throat and waited as if he expected absolute silence from the audience. When he started, his voice was strong and confident with a touch of a melodic quality, enunciating the words with an Australian accent. He had a look of satisfaction in his face as though his reciting abilities could make any fidgety listeners more attentive.

                “Welcome to the Department of Language Appreciation. My name is Keith Recurrent and I’ll be your exam interlocutor. Today’s language examination is on a poem by James Derrick called “The Songs that Rime”. Written in 2200 AD, it seems quite appropriate today, three hundred years later. Listen to it and submit a full analysis through the PCs in front of you”. He waited to see if his words had been understood and started reciting imperturbably:

               

                Once, a noble race of men

                Never let themselves  slip away

                When they tackled conformity there and then

                From past fallacies they saw the way.

               

                Like bees on the violet petals of aster

                They danced their songs that rime and married morality

                Overcoming the mighty cliffs of disaster

                T’was indeed an action of rarity!

               

                 Money and power, avarice freed

                The tides of time, and blemished desires

                Smudged their souls with plenty of greed

                Despoiling the songs that rime of those noble sires.

               

                What is to happen to that noble race?

                As I look at their songs that rime I see

                Dire straits and bedlam embrace

                The Fires I behold and the death I foresee.

               

                And that noble race in their prime

                Dead and forgotten the tides will sail

                In the annals of time their songs that rime

                At the end of it all they did nothing but fail.

 

Neither applause nor praise came to pay their dues as he finished with the reciting. It was as though a deathly silence had fallen, as if he was talking to ghosts that silently went on haunting the vast amphitheater.  He looked poignant as he turned around and disappeared as silently as he had appeared.

                Alan Custer had never felt more anguish in his life. Happy-go-lucky by nature, the Australian looked grave and disappointed. “What a waste!” he said. “What a complete waste! To think that perhaps this colony would have flourished, would have been different! People are alike all over!”

                “It seems that way Alan”, said Helen, turning round to face him. “It seems to me too that technology is not the epitome of civilization nor is the changing of the environment. People carry their inner selves wherever they go. Perhaps love and kindness and moral values are the answers to our plight as human beings”.

                “Maybe you’re right Helen”, said Darrow wearily, “but philosophy won’t make it easier for us to fathom what really happened here. It might remind us though not to make the same mistakes in the future back on Earth. If they had listened truly to this poem, then perhaps they wouldn’t have come to this!”

                “To think that people who love poetry and the arts, culture and philosophy could do such a thing!” mused Victor loudly, shaking his head. “It could happen to the best of us. Perhaps teaching shouldn’t be about just memorizing facts and figures, empty words on paper but about making better people as well; people who will respect and show tolerance, love and understanding towards each other”.

                Commander Darrow’s communication device beeped and as he answered it the voice of Burke, the pilot of the mother ship in orbit around the planet,  was heard. “Commander, you should take off in the next five minutes if you want us to blast away in time for our rendezvous with the colony ship from Orion”.

                “Ok, Burke, will do, Darrow out”. As he placed the communication device back to his belt, Darrow motioned to the reconnaissance party towards the exit of the building. Scientific equipment was immediately gathered and everyone made for the ship waiting outside the building.

                “Commander, do you want us to dismantle the apparatus before we leave?” asked the professor showing the projector-like device on the ceiling.

                “No, let it be. Let it stand there as a beacon of the idiocy and malice of these people who brought themselves to this!”

                As they were boarding the ship, different thoughts occupied each member of the landing party. Little small talk was exchanged among them as the ship took off and headed sky-high, disappearing behind the clouds in the sky.

 

It was a vast auditorium. Empty though it was, the chairs destroyed, the walls dilapidated, a relic, it reminded nothing of a once prestigious learning center. Through the battered walls one could see the utter devastation in the distance along with the rubble of the once prosperous metropolis. Bodies of people young and old were scattered everywhere rotting at the places they had died. For in a moment of thoughtless political retribution Recurrent’s people had brought upon themselves the mighty annihilation that a long dead poet had feared centuries before.

                Recurrent appeared once again as if from nowhere. He stepped behind the pulpit and with an air of respect took his hat off…

                “Welcome to the Department of Language Appreciation… Today’s language examination is on a poem by James Derrick called “The Songs that Rime…”

                “Once, a noble race of men…”

The holographic device, perhaps due to a concussion from the first bombs that were dropped, was stuck in a loop and would go on addressing a long gone audience ad infinitum or at least until its batteries started to decay and finally die. And that would take some time… A long time!