A selection from "Common Time" by Bruce Golden

Common Time

by Bruce Golden

H

e stepped through the pandemonium of vines and hulking, water-
rich leaves as if walking on shards of glass, planting each step with
caution, straining to see beyond the wall of vegetation. Shadows mocked his imagination. Every gargantuan outgrowth became another monster in his path.

Ignoring the pain as another barbed branch reminded him of the wound in his thigh, he scanned the foliage and listened to the distant but crisp sounds of battle. Through a break in the emerald canopy he saw a burst of crimson light streak across the cloud-covered sky like the herald of some great storm.

What was he doing here? He, Willie Solman, who used to go out of his way not to step on even a garden snail. What the hell was he doing here, in the astromarines, trying to kill creatures he’d never even seen, except in some grainy vids? It was crazy. The whole thing was crazy–the hate, the killing, a war over some godforsaken sector of the galaxy. It had nothing to do with him. It was none of his business, at least it hadn’t been until the government dusted off an antiquated conscription act and snatched him away from his life. It was lunacy. He didn’t belong here. He belonged back home, on stage at The Bad Penny playing the blues.

Instead he was . . . well, he didn’t know exactly where he was–not where in space, not where on this planet. An ambush had separated him from his platoon. The chaotic images still blazed fiercely in his brain. Blood everywhere, weapons fire punctuated by screams, meaningless shouted commands. Gilmore and Fitzgerald and little Jose all fell with the first blasts, holes burned through flesh and bone. He dropped to the ground and covered up at the first sound of attack. Rigid with fear, he didn’t move until he had heard an order to withdraw. But withdraw where?

So he crawled, the fighting all around him–crawled over the dead, burnt body of Doc McGee–crawled until he collapsed from exhaustion. He didn’t realize he was wounded until later. His first firefight and he hadn’t even taken the safety off. For all he knew, everyone else was dead, and he still hadn’t seen one of the things he was supposed to be fighting.

He’d heard stories though. Stories like the ones Sergeant Bortman told about killing “slugs” on Vega 7. He called it “exterminating.” He described their blue-slime blood and hideous features, and how they would eat their own dead. Willie didn’t know how much of what Bortman had told them was true, but the stories alone had been enough to make him want to go AWOL. But where could you go in the dead of space?

The tactical com in his helmet had been spitting nothing but static for a while, so he’d switched it off. His visor display was inoperative, as was his GPS. The heft of the M-90 in his hands didn’t make him feel any more secure, but at least he’d taken the safety off now. If only he could be sure which way to go. Toward the sounds of combat? Away from them? He wasn’t even sure if he could tell which direction the sounds were coming from. But anything was better than just sitting and waiting–waiting for God-knows-what. Another ragged flicker illuminated the sky and the ground beneath him trembled with a distant rumble. A moldy stench saturated the air and Willie’s mouth tasted of his own sweat. The humidity clung to him like a second skin, and with each step green mud clutched at his boots as if to pull him down into the bowels of this alien world.

He pushed aside another elephantine leaf with the barrel of his weapon and stretched to step over a rotting log. His thigh was growing numb. He hoped that was a good sign.

Before he could swing his other leg over the log, something lashed out at him. Only a reflex duck prevented him from getting hit. He swung his weapon around, ready to blast whatever it was, and saw a long, purplish whip recoil like a party favor. The tendril vanished inside a hulking, frog-like creature the size of a cow and as green as its environs. It had no visible eyes or legs, just a bizarre crown of prickly thorns atop what appeared to be its head. Willie wasn’t sure if it was animal, vegetable, or enemy booby trap.

He kept his weapon poised as he edged around it, staying what he hoped was out of range of its tentacle tongue. It made no other movement, and though it was soon behind him, he was now wary of running into one of its cousins.

The distant battle sounds had faded, but that only rendered the pounding of his heart that much louder. He found a relatively dry patch of ground and squatted to rest. He even let his eyes close for a few seconds. That’s when he heard it. His sense of fatigue vanished and his eyes opened with the alertness fear brings. He didn’t move, he just listened. There it was again–music!

A hallucination? Had an alien virus infected his wound? They’d been warned of the high risk of infection and delirium. Willie shook his head and listened again. It was still there–distant but real. The strangest sounding melody he’d ever heard. Light and airy like he imagined the pipes of Pan, yet hauntingly sad. At first it sounded like a flute. Then he could have sworn it was a throaty sax.

It reverberated through the jungle, each note creating its own echo. Willie found it both beautiful and bewitching. He didn’t hesitate. He stood and began tracking the sound like he was tracking game back in Louisiana. He was drawn to it–no longer concerned with threat to life and limb. Music was the only thing that still made sense to him, and he didn’t care if the devil himself was playing it.

It grew louder, convincing him he was moving in the right direction. When he stepped out of the tangle of thick bush into a small clearing he saw it.

The thing was leaning against a twisted tree and playing a queer looking instrument shaped like a trio of snakes, intertwined at a single mouthpiece but separating into three distinctly different tubular openings. The instrument’s oddity, however, couldn’t compete with the thing that played it.

It stood on two legs, manlike, and was even dressed in military garb similar to his own. But that’s where the similarity ended. Its face was a discolored, gelatinous mass, given life only by the two bulbous eyes which seemed ready to burst from bloated, quivering cheeks. Even several yards away, Willie could see the veins pulsing through its nearly translucent skin. It had no nose to speak of, but three cavernous nostrils where it should have been. The thing was hairless, as far as he could tell, and its mouth was a lipless orifice that wrapped itself obscenely around the base of the instrument.

Willie comprehended all this in the instant he stepped into the clearing–the same instant he froze, paralyzed by fear, enticed by the music–the same moment the alien thing saw him. 

Its own shock was evident. It ceased playing, lowered its instrument, and stared. Reality replaced wonderment in a heartbeat, and both soldiers took aim with their weapons.

He was supposed to fire. Willie knew, even as he gripped the weapon, that he should squeeze the trigger, get off the first burst, and dive for cover. It had been drilled into him over weeks of intensive, shove-it-down-your-throat training. He knew he should fire . . . but he didn’t. So he waited, waited for death to flash at him. Yet death never came. The creature held its weapon ready to fire, but didn’t.

Willie decided to play the moment for all it was worth. Moving as slowly as he could, he shouldered his weapon. Almost simultaneously the thing standing across from him lowered its own. They stood there looking at each other, examining more closely the dissimilarities.

Willie wanted to speak, to say he hadn’t fired because he had no stomach for killing, and because . . . because of the music. He wanted to ask the creature why it had not burned him, and what was that strange instrument called? Instead he reached carefully into his shirt pocket. When he pulled out his harmonica the thing reacted defensively, raising its weapon once more.

Cautiously, Willie lifted the harmonica to his lips and began playing. At the first note, the alien relaxed. It propped its weapon against the tree and listened.

It was a slow, sad blues number that mingled easily with the dreary rain forest–the small clearing containing it like a living amphitheater. Part way through, Willie stopped, looked at his adversary and grinned. The alien retrieved its own queer instrument and began the same seductively eerie melody it had played before. Willie was amazed at how the creature’s flabby puce fingers squirmed up and down the instrument’s shafts as if it were playing some three-dimensional game. Watching the performance, he found his eyes as mesmerized as his ears. He listened a while longer, trying to decipher the notes, the melody, then joined in with his harmonica. He played softly and tried to follow along. Just as he seemed to be getting it, the alien stopped. Willie stopped too, and let loose with a big grin. He wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn the thing smiled back at him.

The creature took a few plodding steps closer and motioned towards Willie with its triple-pronged instrument. It wanted him to do something. A noise escaped its mouth, but it was gibberish to Willie.

“I haven’t a clue what you’re saying, bub.”

It kept pointing at him as it lumbered closer. Willie realized it wasn’t pointing at him, but at his harmonica. It held out its own instrument, and then he understood.

As they made the exchange, Willie’s hand brushed the creature’s and the clamminess of its skin filled him momentarily with dread. The sensation faded as he ran his fingers over the smooth finish of the alien contraption. He couldn’t tell if it was made of highly-polished wood or some synthetic polymer.

Willie raised it to his lips, hesitated before touching it, then shrugged off the thought and tried to play. The noise that squeaked forth was anything but harmonious. After two audibly painful attempts he stopped.

Meanwhile, the alien had fastened its own wide mouth onto the harmonica, but it took several attempts before it made any sound at all. When it finally discovered the proper method, the notes it created made them both laugh. At least it sounded to Willie like the thing was laughing.

Before the echo of their laughter faded, an explosion rocked the jungle clearing and knocked them both to the ground. The alien scrambled to its feet first and headed for its weapon. Stunned, Willie struggled to sit up as an armored juggernaut lumbered through the thick growth and emerged into the clearing. Behind it swarmed a platoon of marines. Like angry insects they opened fire. Blasts of red-yellow heat crackled around the alien in its ungainly dash for cover.

Willie staggered to his feet and looked at his fellow marines through a daze of colliding emotions. Before he could think to call out, the alien disappeared into the bush. Then the jungle exploded in a concussion of shredded leaves and flying mud. The creature’s weapon twirled end over end, in dreamlike slow motion through the debris shower.

“Keep moving! Stay alert, stay close!” The platoon leader added a wave of his arm to his commands and moved in behind the treads of still rolling vehicle.

Willie stood mute, a stupefied glaze plastered his face. His arms hung limp, his weapon in one hand, the alien instrument in the other.

“Hey! You okay?” A baby-faced marine tried to get his attention. “I said are you okay?”

Willie nodded in the affirmative and the marine moved on. As quickly as it had stormed the clearing the attack force moved out, the only evidence of its passing the mangled vegetation.Still standing, still staring off towards the jungle where the alien soldier had disappeared, Willie tried to breach the haze clouding his brain. He lifted the strange instrument in his hand, astonished to discover he still had it. His other hand opened, and his M-90 fell to the mud. With both hands he raised the queer mouthpiece to his lips and . . . .