The descent and landing of Lieutenant Kaarn Pinsen’s away team, with her detail of three crewmembers of the Domain Fleet Starship Bogdanove—Orion and Tarsus, two burly male security officers, one light-skinned, one dark, and Kingsley, a raven-haired Cambodian communications and tracking expert—had taken place without incident. The small, sleek cruiser had found a school playground, abandoned for the summer save for dog walkers and some neighborhood kids who played sandlot baseball on a neglected diamond in the far corner —pitcher’s hand, right field out—sometimes three times a day, and cloaked the vessel from earthling eyes.

Even before landing, the four had already picked out a house in the Detroit neighborhood a block from the school, recently abandoned but not yet encroached upon by drug addicts—Orion and Tarsus would see to that. Kingsley, a quick study of earth culture, took advantage of the squatter’s laws and presented herself downtown to claim deed to the property—all perfectly legal except that her identifying documents were forged. By the time she returned to the house, by means of public transportation, Orion and Kingsley had secured two vehicles and was going over them in the garage. “At least we won’t have to ride the bus again,” she said.

That evening, however, as she sat at the kitchen table over the portable communication devices the four had been issued, she report to the others, “We have a problem. We have no signal from the Bogdanove.”

“Impossible, Shara,” said Tarsus, his bald white forehead wrinkling into a frown. “I checked those devices myself before we left ship. They were in perfect order …”

“The problem isn’t with the devices,” said Shara Kingsley. “It’s the signal from the Bogdanove—their cloaking screen must be causing interference. It’s too weak for us to pick up reliably.”

“We need communication with the ship,” said Kaarn Pinsen. “We’re relying on their trackers to locate the fugitives.”

“What about the communications on the cruiser?” said Orion. “The signal was strong even after we landed, until we signed off.”

“We can always board the cruiser to contact the Bogdanove,” said Kingsley. “But we’d have to turn off its cloaking screen, too, to ensure a good connection. We could do so in the dead of night, but even then, we risk raising suspicion from insomniac earthlings.”

“Why does the Bogdanove need to be cloaking?” demanded Orion, his strong, black hands tensing. “That earthling orbiting satellite—it has no offensive weapons. The Bogdanove could knock it out …”

“The captain isn’t about to do that,” said Pinsen. “She’s old school, doesn’t like to interfere with alien worlds unless absolutely necessary. No doubt the earth satellite has already reported its suspicions that some alien spacecraft is orbiting the planet; they’re continually scanning for the Bogdanove, but they’re not able to pinpoint it. If the earthling American government realizes its killer satellite is out of commission, they’ll assume the worst—and launch an intercontinental ballistic missile into the general vicinity and knock out the Bogdanove.”

Kingsley nodded her head in agreement. “Earth civilization may be primitive in this era, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t dangerous.”

“But what are we to do?” asked Tarsus. “If we can’t communicate with the Bogdanove, we can’t track the fugitives—our search will take forever.”

“We can’t pick up the signal of Rory Smash hotrod,” said Kingsley, manipulating one of the palm devices. “The old smuggler must have it cloaked, too. But this one has been able to pick up a curious, faint roaming signal—he must have ground transportation of some sort. Those vehicles you absconded will come in handy. But we’re still going to need amplification.”

“We can build an antennae on the roof of the garage that’s not too conspicuous,” said Orion.

“No better than using the cruiser,” said Pinsen. “It would be okay for receiving date from the Bogdanove, but sending a transmission from a static location would easily give us away to the earth satellite up there, and the ground authorities. That’s why the mobile devices are necessary, so can keep moving.”

“We could build an antenna just to receive data on the garage,” said Tarsus, “and equip both vehicles with mobile transponders to amplify our mobile communicators. But it will take some time to gather the equipment.”

Pinsen nodded.

“We’re on it,” said Orion.

***

Aryaman Ronith sat with an acoustic guitar in his hand, fingering the frets and moving his mouth as he tried to make sense of the sheet music on the stand in front of him. “Alpha-numeric notation of sonic frequencies,” he murmured, along with intermittent remarks like, “How quaint,” and “Enthralling!” Progressively, his fingers moved more quickly, his left hand finding frets while his right hand plucked the strings with a pick, his fingernail, or the skin of his thumb.

Within moments he was paging through Bach transcriptions, jazz pattern books, and charts for big band orchestrations. The sounds coming from his guitar, halting at first, became soaring, elegiac improvisations, musical compositions in their own right. Notes on staves, accent markings, and chords symbols went into his eyes and out his fingers like Mozart by way of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, and Jimi Hendrix.

“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” he said.

Aryaman was completely oblivious to the students in his master class who sat, slack-jawed, their brass and reed instruments resting on their laps. Second tenor Eddy “O.J.” Pershing, who was fiddling with his metal mouthpiece cap, let it drop; it rattled and rolled away on the newly-polished band room floor.

The sound brought Aryaman out of his reverie. He looked around at all the students watching his performance as if he’d just come out of a hypnotic trance.

“Do you want us to play something?” asked Vickie Freedman, the stocky girl behind the drum kit.

“Hmm?” Aryaman replied. “Ah, yes. How about the circle of fifths, all major and minor keys, three-quarters, six-eight, then fifteen sixteenths …”

Neal H. Richards, who was leaning against the chalkboard, unusually clean-shaven with a fresh suit of clothes, approached Aryaman, who was seated on a low riser, and leaned over his shoulder.

“Maybe back off the virtuoso pyrotechnics just a bid,” Neal whispered. “The students can be a little intimidated when the instructor is too talented.”

“Hmm?” said Aryaman, startled. “Oh, yes. Of Course. How about a slow, casual blues in F; four-four time, straight ahead, as they say.”

Marc Muni, the bass player, uncertainly called out, “One, two, three, four …”

Vicki picked up the beat and Steve Marcie, the rhythm guitarist, strummed out some chords, and Suzie Sturgeon, piano, filled in with some counterpoint harmonies.

“Is this guy putting us on?” whispered Paul Walker, alto saxophonist, to O.J. “He acts like he’s never seen written music before in his life, then he unreels a solo worthy of Blue Note Records.”

“Maybe he’s an ear player,” mused O.J. “Isn’t music in India written in Sanskrit or something?”

“Let’s go around the room and trade fours,” said Aryaman. “Just simple eighth notes. Take it easy. Laid back.”

Kyle Wallace, the trombonist, played a simple blues scale without any swing. “Good,” said Neal.

“Yes, brilliant,” said Aryaman.

Aaron Walker on cornet, did some arpeggiated chords.

“Good use of the Dorian flat two suspended four,” said Aryaman.

“Was that what I was doing?” Aaron said to himself as he wiped his mouthpiece on his Stevenson Silver Spartans T-shirt.

***

Ernie Penn Pierson, whose Student Activities Office was within earshot of the band room, remarked, “Kind of makes me want to dust off the old mandolin.”

“I used to do some scat singing in college,” said Victoria Bryant, who was sitting on the edge of his desk. “I hate to admit it, but those visiting artists you found at the last minute saved my ass. Did you see how the mural is shaping up down the hall? That woman Dallas is a marvel.”

“I’m just filling out the paperwork,” said Ernie. “Dallas says her real name is Dalam Melayu.”

“What is that, Moroccan?”

“Winnipeg, I think,” said Ernie.

“And the stuff coming out of woodworking—pure genius,” said Victoria. “Hoskins has them doing fine scrollwork on plywood. What’s his first name?”

“I don’t know,” said Ernie. “Come to think of it, is Hoskins a he or a she?”

“I don’t care, as long as the school board sees the results. That’s all that matters. You vouched for them, and I should have trusted.”

“Yes, I certainly did,” said Ernie, suddenly. “I vouched for them.”

He got up from his desk and grabbed the paperwork.

“While I’m thinking of it, I’ll go ask her. Him. Whoever.”

“You do that,” said Victoria. “Keep up the good work, Ernie.”

Ernie strode down the hall to the shop class. “Fingers crossed,” he kept saying to himself.