Phoenix applauded when Swan had finished. Her expression was reluctantly respectful. Gravely, she said, “This captain of yours—”
He’s not mine, Swan thought, although perhaps I am his.
“—do you know anything of his musical preferences?”
Swan shook her head. “I tried to find out,” she said. After all, if the captain had possessed enough influence to send her to the swanwatch, he might also be able to influence the selection of judges. “He commissioned a synesthetic opera once, which I have no recording of. Beyond that, who knows how he interprets the grave-of-ships? And if I am to do each swanship justice, shouldn’t I draw upon the musical traditions of their cultures? Some of them contradict each other. How am I to deal with this in a single finite symphony?”
Phoenix lifted an eyebrow, and Swan felt ashamed of her outburst. “Do you know why we’re here, Swan?” she asked. She was not referring to their official mission of contemplating the fermata to further their art.
“It seemed impolite to ask,” Swan said.
“Tiger is a war criminal,” Phoenix said. “Tortoise is a scholar who resigned and came here to protest the policies of some government that has since been wiped out of time. It might even have done some good, in the strand of society where he was famous. I, of course, am here as unjustly as you are.” She did not elaborate.
“And Dragon?”
Phoenix smiled thinly. “You should ask Dragon yourself. It might make you think twice about your symphony.”
Swan wouldn’t have realized anything was wrong if Tiger hadn’t sent her a message while she was in the middle of working on her second movement. The idea had come to her in the middle of her sleep shift, and she was kneeling at the zither, adjusting the bridges.
“Urgent message from Tiger,” the station informed her.
“Go ahead,” Swan said absently, trying to decide what mode to tune to.
Tiger’s voice said, “Hello, cygnet. It’s Tortoise’s watch, but he seems to be asleep as usual, and you might be interested in going to the observation room.”
Tiger’s tone was lazy, but she had flagged the message as urgent. What was going on?
“Station,” Swan said, “who’s in the observation room now?”
“No one,” it said.
“Is there a swanship scheduled to arrive soon?”
“There is an unscheduled swanship right now.”
Swan rose and ran to the observation room.
Tiger had been correct about the importance of ritual. No matter how smoothly a ship descended into the fermata, Swan always checked the ship’s status. Swanships did occasionally arrive off-schedule, but she wondered why Tiger had sounded concerned.
So she looked at the ship, which was tiny, with an underpowered sublight drive, and its crew, a single person: Gazhien of the Circle of Swords.
She knew that name, although ages had passed since she had used it. It was Dragon.
She asked the station what the Circle of Swords was. It had been a swanship nearly a century ago, and all but one member of the crew had passed into the fermata on it.
“Swan to Dragon,” she said to the tiny ship, which was one of the station’s shuttles. “Swan to Dragon. Please come back!”
After a heartstopping moment, Dragon replied, “Ah, Swan.”
Swan could have said, What do you think you’re doing?, but they both knew that. Instead, she asked, “Why now, and not tomorrow, or the day before? Why this day of all days, after a century of waiting?”
“You are as tactful as ever,” Dragon said, “even about the matter of my cowardice.”
“Please, Dragon.”
Dragon’s voice was peculiarly meditative. “Your symphony reminds me of my duty, Swan. I came here a long time ago on the Circle of Swords. It was one of the proudest warships of—well, the nation has since passed into anarchy. I was the only soldier too afraid of my fate to swear the sacred oath to sing always against the coming silence. As punishment, they left me here to contemplate my failure, forever separated from my comrades.”
“Dragon,” Swan said, “they’re long gone now. What good will it do them, at this end of time, for you to die?”
“The Concert teaches that the fermata is our greatest form of immortality—”
“Dead is dead,” Swan said. “At this end of time, what is the hurry?”
The door whisked open. Swan looked away from the ship’s image and met Tiger’s curious eyes.
“Damn, ’Zhien,” Tiger said respectfully. “So you found the courage after all.”
“That’s not it,” Swan said. “The symphony wasn’t supposed to be about the glory of death.”
Loftily, Tiger said, “Oh, I’d never perform suicide art. There’s nothing pretty about death. You learn that in battle.”
After a silence, Dragon said, “What did you intend, then, Swan?”
The question brought her up short. She had been so absorbed in attempting to convey the swanships’ grandeur that she had forgotten that real people passed into the fermata to send their souls to the end of time. “I’ll change my music,” she said. “I’ll delete it all if I have to.”
“Please don’t,” Dragon said. “I would miss it greatly.” A faint swelling of melody: his ship was playing back one of her first, stumbling efforts.
“You’ll miss it forever if you keep going.”
“A bargain, then,” Dragon said. “I was never an artist, only a soldier, but a hundred years here have taught me the value of art. Don’t destroy your music, and I’ll come back.”
Swan’s eyes prickled. “All right.”
Tiger and Swan watched as Dragon’s ship decelerated, then reversed its course, returning to the station.
“You’ve sacrificed your freedom to bring him back, you know,” Tiger said. “If you finish your symphony now, it will lack conviction. Anyone with half an ear will be able to tell.”
“I would rather have Dragon’s life than write a masterpiece,” Swan said.
“You’re a fool, cygnet.”
Only then did Swan realize that, in her alarm over the situation, she had completely forgotten the theme she had meant to record.
Dragon helped Swan move the keyboard out of the observation room and into the rock garden. “I’m glad you’re not giving up your music,” he remarked.
She looked at him, really looked at him, thinking of how she had almost lost a friend. “I’m not writing the symphony,” she said.
He blinked.
“I’m still writing music,” Swan assured him. “Just not the captain’s symphony. Because you were right: it’s impossible. At least, what I envisioned is impossible. If I dwell upon the impossible, I achieve nothing. But if I do what I can, where I can—I might get somewhere.”
She wasn’t referring to freedom from the swanwatch.
Dragon nodded. “I think I see. And Swan—” He hesitated. “Thank you.”
“It’s been a long day,” she said. “You should rest.”
“Like Tortoise?” He chuckled. “Perhaps I will.” He ran one hand along the keyboard in a flurry of notes. Then he sat on one of the garden’s benches and closed his eyes, humming idly.
Swan studied Dragon’s calm face. Then she stood at the keyboard and played several tentative notes, a song for Dragon and Phoenix and Tiger. A song for the living.
SPIREY AND THE QUEEN
by Alastair Reynolds