Aurora: A Child of Two Worlds: A Science Fiction Novel. David A. Hardy
then drifted away.
* * * *
“Ladies and Gentlemen.... Guys and Gals.... Let’s have a big hand for...the Gas Giants!”
The curtains rolled back and there was a scatter of clapping as sound began to fill the auditorium. Most of the audience had never heard of the band. It was only the support group, after all. The bar remained full to bursting. Latecomers straggled in and stumbled along the rows of seats, forcing grumbling sitters to stand.
The stage was bathed in ripples of violet, blue, green, yellow light which changed and pulsed with the music. Herbie had proved to have no mean talent with electronics now that Synth no longer monopolized the equipment, and his second guitar seemed no longer needed. He operated a kind of keyboard which produced changes of light instead of sound. The band had broken with the convention of patched jeans and T-shirts, and all wore close-fitting black, including Aurora; though her costume was more in the nature of a cat-suit, against which her bright hair shone.
The audience hardly noticed. At first this was because they were talking among themselves, as they normally did during support acts. But very shortly there was a chorus of “Ssshhhh!” and the late arrivals started getting angry glares. In no time the listeners were being carried away on wave after wave of soaring sound, lifting every one of them out of their humdrum, everyday existence, making them forget troubles, ills, quarrels petty or serious, and at the same time welding them into one great corporate entity which was part of the music.
There were no separate pieces of music or songs this time, nor need for applause. For the two thousand people in the theater, each in his or her own way, gave back as much as they received. But the music changed and flowed, so that at times everyone present was silent and sad, at others joyous, bright-eyed. Management, usherettes and bouncers stood at the sides, relaxed; for, despite the electric, emotion-charged atmosphere, there was no hint of rowdiness. A BBC television crew, setting up cameras for the headline group, hastily started filming.
Not everyone agreed on what happened next. To some, it remained a really great concert, the best music they had ever heard, with an unusually good rapport between musicians and audience. And even those who saw the “visions” did not all agree on what they saw. But to most of the latter:
The music was a mighty silver waterfall, leaping and cascading down, down, amongst the crags of a tall volcanic mountain whose peak was lost in the clouds. It crashed, it rushed, it roared, and then it split into myriad streams which splashed, gurgled, tinkled between moss-covered rocks.
The stream which was the music entered a dark cave, where it flowed in echoing darkness for a while, then light reappeared, emanating from globular shapes—fungi?—on the walls of the cavern: blue, green, purple. As the light brightened, the rivulet widened and figures became visible, bathing naked in the now-warm water. Other tributaries swirled in, half-seen through wisps of steam, from gullies among the rocks. Strange, fern-like plants sprang from the banks.
In a sudden glare of sound the torrent sluiced straight down a hillside in the full light of day; yet this daylight had an unearthly quality. The stream broadened, and meandered through open countryside. Trees lined its banks, trailing yellow-green leaves in its swirling surface. On the left, the land rose to a huge, flat-topped hill. Many white-robed people were making their way up its slopes. Among them ran nude and bronzed pale-eyed children, youths and girls, laughing and dancing. The music seemed to swell as though joined by an orchestra and choir from outside itself, rolling down from the rim of the hill....
The people in the auditorium blinked, collectively, as the music seemed to falter. The scene blurred. There were low metal buildings, an interminable flat expanse of sand. Some of the audience felt they were being carried in strong arms. Then the view tilted upward, up over curved metal plates.
Confusion.
Noise.
Pressure.
Red darkness.
Black darkness.
For a long time, total lack of sensation.
Sudden shock, pain. A surge of movement, forward; then falling. Somewhere far off, as though seen through crystal, violent blasts of light: red, yellow, white, red again. Darkness. Falling, falling. Gentle hands lifting, lowering. A jolt, a hard surface below.
Noise!
Fear!
There was a startling crackle and a shower of sparks, and the music stopped abruptly. Aurora reeled back from her instrument, fell into the drums and was caught by Doug, as limp as though she were a rag doll. The curtains were hurriedly lowered. There was a cursory announcement that someone had been taken ill.
After a long and uneasy pause the main band came on and played their usual set. It was one of their best performances, but they played to an apathetic and unresponsive house.
Next day the critics in the musical and national press virtually ignored them. They wrote of the incredibly talented debut performance of this unknown support group, and of the unfortunate collapse of their beautiful young female keyboards player (whose age was given as 16). A few mentioned the almost psychical effect upon the audience; others, practical men and women at heart, wrote of the effective pre-recorded orchestral and choral tapes which had augmented the live performance, and of what must surely be a breakthrough in back-projection, suggesting a new holographic laser process producing lifelike and three-dimensional moving images of scenes and people.
The rest of the Gas Giants’ tour had to be cancelled, of course, but, thanks to all the publicity, both the single and the LP, rush-released within the week, were immediate hits, remaining in the charts for months. Even so, everyone who had been present at the concert—or at the recording studio, or at the Grotto Club—agreed that, fine though the records were, they failed to capture the intensely personal atmosphere of the live performances. Something indefinable was missing.
Aurora was missing, too. The Gas Giants brought in Herbie’s younger sister, her hair bleached blonde, and mimed to their tapes on Top of the Pops. But without Aurora they seemed like insensate marionettes.
A few months later, they dissolved the band.
* * * *
Lefty often relived that night in his dreams. He saw Aurora reach into the electronics-filled innards of the synthesizer, seeking...seeking what? Some new sound? Who knew?
He had shouted uselessly: “Aurora—DON’T!”
The shock from the full mains voltage had sent her flying backwards. As Doug had carried her inert body into the dressing room, he’d known for sure she was dead.
But she wasn’t. After they had loosened her clothes and, in lieu of brandy, poured a measure of scotch from Ginge’s hipflask down her throat, she had revived quickly, and sat up. It seemed to Lefty that something had gone from her face. As she changed into her street clothes and walked to the door her expression was blank, reminding him of the first time he had seen her.
Little girl lost.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked.
“Back up to Inverness, perhaps. I think maybe I’ll study for a while; try to get into university. I’m wasting my time here.”
“Wasting your time? But what about the band! We’re gonna make it big, can’t you dig that? You can’t just walk out on the rock scene now, just like that.”
“Rock?” she said. A faraway look flickered in her eyes and then was gone. “Oh, yes, rock,” she’d said coldly as she’d closed the door behind her. “That’s all that matters, isn’t it?
“Rock....”
ACT THREE
ARSIA MONS
Rock. Rock and more rock. Black rock, ochre rock, amber rock. Nothing but rock everywhere you looked. Anne Pryor chipped at the flank of Arsia Mons with her geologist’s hammer and carefully placed the latest fragment in her sample case. She spoke the identifying data into her helmet mike, tonguing