Redshift Sue Sings the Blues

There is nothing like the sound of a classic retro-rock band warming up before a show.

Sounded like they had some genuine antique instruments too, or at least a set of very good sampling synths going. I could swear that the guitar player was wielding a real Stratocaster with custom Humbucker pickups. Nothing else in the universe sounds like that. And if the keyboard player wasn't pounding a museum quality Bosendorfer piano, I'll eat my hat- UV visor and all. Without getting up to look into the room, I couldn't tell for sure if the drummer was using synth drums or the real thing. Either Elvis was taking time off from bar tending in the Pantheon, or Max had hired a band from Earth to play in there tonight. They were warming up with a three-chord blues/rock jam that set my feet to twitching and my toes tapping in time with the four/four back-beat. Suddenly, I wanted to dance my cares away until dawn came by to spoil the fun. And this was before I'd even ordered my first drink! Max was busy with a few other orders as I sat down, so I just listened for a little while- Minutes well spent, in any case. I'd been on Bethdish for three days- stuck in a conference at the company's business complex. The Ivory Tower types that made up our executive management had just finished their speeches and let us all out at lunch time today. I had another day or so before I had to leave on the next liner back to my own office on Cellzar Five, so I wasted no time hailing a hover cab and heading over to the Mare Inebrium Tower. It only took a matter of minutes from when the cab settled to the ground level slidewalk until the moment I parked myself on a barstool in the main room. Even in so brief a time, I could hardly miss the sounds wafting out of the open doorway to the small ballroom.

"What's your pleasure, friend?" Max asked as he walked up to where I sat at the bar. "Slow morning so far, except for those two keeping me hopping. I'm thinking strongly about running a hose out to their table." Max inclined his head toward a pair of Tekeeleelee crinoids hunched together over a small floating table near the center of the front row. I could only see about twenty other patrons scattered about the main room.

Whiskey Sour my mind said. "Aldebaran Whiskey with a dash of Kyuna-limeberry juice. Who is the band?"

"Oh, so you like that 'eh?" Max asked as if one fan to another.

"I used to play a little bit, when was younger. But nothing like that! I know audiophiles who would pay plenty to record them. This kind of thing always sells well at their conventions. Some ship crews supplement their pay by recording any broadcast wavefronts their ships happen to pass through. They sell them whenever they reach a port that has a market for them. I've made a few credits myself, off of a chance recording ot two. I once caught the wavefront of a rare Ric Wakeman concert from Earth on the ship's com recorder- when I'd had to stop and fix a balky thruster in mid-flight. I managed to sell the recording for enough to salt away to add to my retirement fund as well as buy a new thruster."

Max handed me my drink and left to take an order from someone else just walking in. I sipped and listened in contented silence. The band shifted to a new piece and the beat changed a little; the piano shifted to a pipe organ- Must be a synth after all. The bass player thundered in, followed by the drummer. I was just the perfect distance from the Ballroom's doorway to get the best volume level. Either that, or the whole bar had perfect acoustics.

"They're a pick-up band-" Max said as he returned. "Some guys that Elvis met in jam sessions, somewhere or other. Never played all together in one group before. He's paying them, not me. I'm not the only one with an in with the boss." He grinned. "Ready for another?"

"Sure," I said. "I seem to have finished this one off rather quickly. The music, I guess."

"That you did," Max replied as he handed me another round. "Not a problem. They'll probably be at it off and on all day. Then after dark they'll play a few sets for the after diner crowd. Ah, there they go, taking a break. They're just rehearsing this morning."

"Sounded good, anyway. I enjoyed it." I sipped at my drink more carefully this time, determined to make it last longer than the first. Max began setting things up for the next rush hour. As he polished and shelved glasses and tankards, we talked about the local college sports teams, local news since the last time I'd been in, the weather- Just casual stuff. The band picked up again after a while, but with a slower beat this time. The piano was back again- Its chords pure and clean and crying in the dark. The bass quietly played a complicated counterpoint to the piano's chords. The lead smoothly slid into the mix with a plaintive moan of distortion- Quiet, subdued, but insistent. This was real blues. After a long intro, the music shifted, the instruments stepped back. Then I found out that they had a vocalist, too. I sat stunned at the first sound of this woman's voice. She was crying out her pain and loss for a lover long gone. Low, husky, somehow seductive, but filled with pain. I took a quick gulp of my drink as she began to sing.

The vision slowly fades away
Before I truly see,
The memory of your face,
A ghost in front of me.
I see your ageless beauty fade,
Before my very eyes.
I feel the pain that I have felt,
Since we last said good-bye.

I let out a long, slow breath that I didn't know I'd been holding. I took another drink and listened to the chorus wafting out from the ballroom. I turned my head to hear better.

I am haunted by your love,
Lost so long ago.
Lost, never to return...
Why can't I let you go?

Slowly, an organ eased in behind the piano. Long, slow notes, quietly reinforcing the melody.

I reach for fleeting memories now
To cherish like the gold,
But like a smoke they fade away
Before my hand takes hold.
I remember things we did
and things we planned to do.
Its been a million empty years
Since my arms last held you.

Max and I looked at each other. This singer had the voice of an angel with her strings cut- and falling fast. This wasn't just a song any more. This was half a lifetime spent in anguish, poured out for the universe to hear and lament. I glanced around and saw that every sentient in the room was looking at the open doorway to the ballroom. I kept wanting to get up, to go to her, comfort her, but I couldn't move from my seat. Not to mention that I didn't even know what species she was. She could have been eight meters tall and bright blue, for all I knew.

I am haunted by your love,
Lost oh so long ago.
Lost, never to return...
Why can't you let me go?

The piano player started sneaking in power chords during the bridge. Still keeping to the melody, but getting more classical in style. The band brought the volume up a notch as the drummer added in brushes on the hi-hat cymbals. The guitar and organ jousted in the counter melody. Then the singer came back in like a lost soul.

I know within my heart and soul
A part of you still lies.
Even though we've never met
Since our last good-byes.
I know it isn't good to dwell
Among shadows of the past.
And still, unwanted answers come,
How good things never last.

I am haunted by your love,
From oh so long ago.
Lost, like its never been...
Why can't I let you go?

This time the bridge was longer. They took an instrumental verse and chorus that built steadily in effect to a harder, driving version of what the song had been before. I got the feeling that this was the first time they'd tried this song together. Like they were building it from scratch, from a few chance licks in a jam session. Except these lyrics didn't sound like any first time run-through.

How it was that we first met
Seems as distant as a dream.
All the things we said and did,
The love that passed between...
I've lived so many lives since then,
An e-tern-i-ty ago.
How much longer will it last,
'Til your love lets me go?

I am haunted by your love,
From oh so long ago.
Lost- like a bitter wind...
Why can't you let me go?

Haunted by your love,
From eternities ago.
You're never to return...
Why can't I let you go?

The song faded into slow echoes and I found myself able to move again.

"Don't," said Max as I started to leave the barstool. "She wouldn't like it."

"But-- Yes, I guess you're right. She must see lots of guys coming up after shows, wanting to help. It was only a song, right?"

"Right. So sit back down and relax before you wind up doing something you'll regret later. Next drink is on me."

"That song-" I began, then paused to collect my thoughts. "Did she live it? Is it real? Or just words?"

"You might just get a chance to ask her," Max replied. "Looks like the band got a little thirsty." He nodded towards the ballroom door behind me and I fairly spun the seat off the stool as I turned to look. Five humanoid-looking people were walking tiredly out of the ballroom and heading this way. The first thing that struck me was that they were so ordinary looking. I guess I expected spandex skinsuits and tons of glitter under wild hairstyles and makeup. Or at least a couple of non humans. After all, Earth isn't the only world that broadcasts music. Every world that has utilized the EM spectrum for communications has a slowly expanding wavefront bubble of their radio and video signals crossing the cosmos. And plenty of non human music recordings sell as well, or better, than recordings from Earth. I couldn't tell which of the two women in the group was the singer, just from looking at them. Or who played which instrument, for that matter.

"I think we should drop the first bridge," I heard one of the men say as the group walked up. "Maybe do a double verse and chorus between the third and fourth verses instead. And I want to take that Delatron in the lead vocal amp apart again- to see if I can stop that buzz its making. "

"I hear you TJ," the taller of the two women replied to the blond crew-cut man who'd been speaking. "But the intro needs to be longer and build slower, don't you think? But its Sue's song, we can't just swarm all over it like we own it."

"Honey, I give up thinking when I'm this tired," said the shorter woman. "It's coming together pretty well so far. Lets not rush it." I recognized her voice as that of the singer. She wasn't a glamour girl by any means, but then I wasn't seeing her at her best at the moment. The whole group was tired and sweaty from rehearsing. She was taller than average, with long auburn hair. Nice figure too, but she didn't dress to show it. Lovely face, even with no make-up. Her eyes were clear, and green and-- Suddenly, I felt that I could spend a long time looking into them. I looked down at the floor for a second, embarrassed, then back up.

"Nice work," I said. "Who plays what? By the way, I'm Andrew Huntington-Smythe, from Antares Four. Very pleased to meet you all."

"Carmila Lefanu," said the tall blond woman, showing a bright smile that momentarily struck me as being just a little bit different, somehow. She was at least two meters tall, and slim, and was dressed in a baggy mauve sweatsuit. "I play guitar and sing a little background. That's TJ," she indicated the younger man with a blond crewcut, dressed in a faded blue jumpsuit. "He's our Synth and keyboard player, and all around electronic wizard. If its broken, he can fix it. If it isn't broken, he can make it work better. The Back-to-Nature-Boy there is Zed Nugget, our bass player," she said while pointing her thumb over her shoulder at a tall, huskey man wearing Buckskins- like some pre-atomic age hunter/tribesman.

"That's Rolf Chambers, our drummer," said the singer, gesturing towards a muscular, introspective-looking man in subdued blue and gray clothing. "Me? I sing and play a little guitar. And they call me Redshift Sue."

"I want to know about that last song," Max added. "Who wrote it? But more importantly, what are you drinking today, folks? And don't worry, you're comped for the drinks. Elvis is paying for them."

I kept trying not to stare at the singer while Max fixed drinks for the band. After a little bit of small talk between themselves the band members split up. Carmila wandered off to look at the artwork on the Mare's walls, drink in hand. As if that were a signal, TJ and Rolf went back in the ballroom to take apart some esoteric piece of equipment for repairs. Zed gulpped down two more mugs of beer and then left to find the restroom. I hope he found the one for his species. The singer was left sitting at the bar next to me, silently finishing off a drink that was mostly electrolites and flavor, with just enough alcohol to mug a few brain cells instead of killing them. I'd known Max long enough to tell that when he leaves a customer alone, he or she wants to be left alone. I kept quiet and let her think, if that's what she needed. Finally, Max came over to where we sat and leaned on the bar. He looked at Sue as if he could read her mind. A long moment passed while she sat, still staring at the bottom of her drink and tracing abstract patterns with one of her neatly-trimmed fingernails in the condensation her glass had left on the bar.

"That's not just some random piece of music, is it?" Max asked gently. "That song really means something to you, doesn't it?"

"That last song we played?" the singer finally replied. She leaned back on the barstool, swept a lock of coppery-brown hair out of her eyes and looked at Max almost angrily, her expression gradually softening. "My husband wrote it to me not long before he died. We'd been split up due to a tragic accident that he'd had. He was a test pilot, and his ship was lost. Then the weird shit started happening."

"That's so sad," I said. "What happened?"

"You don't have to talk about it," said Max- even more gently, "if you don't want to."

"No, its been a while... I think I need to tell it. It was eleven years ago now. I remember it like it was only yesterday. He was in orbit over Earth, testing a new FTL drive system... and something broke down. The ship disappeared, totally. Forever... Later on I- I started getting messages from my husband. Messages that had been sent from back in the past. He'd found a way to make sure that they were stored until after the time he'd vanished, and then delivered to me. The last message was that song. It was written the furthest back in the past. It had been floating around in an old data storage system until just recently, when it was delivered to me at home in the regular mail. The song was actually written a thousand years ago or more. Written when he was finally forced to give up trying to get back to me. It was his last message to me. Telling me that he had never forgotten me. He'd wanted it to be broadcast on the radio back then, so it would still be traveling outward- towards the farthest reaches of space and time. His voice is out there, singing to me. He always was a sentimental bastard at heart. I still miss him."

She sighed and took another sip from her drink. Max gestured as if to ask if she wanted something stronger, but she shook her head in denial. "You see, the drive malfunctioned somehow, and instead of going faster than light, the ship stayed in the same place, but jumped backwards in time. Each time he tried to get back home, he went further back into the past. And nothing he could do would make it go forwards again. He kept trying right up until he had almost exhausted the ship's power supply for the drive. And he'd also managed to get so far back into the past that if he jumped any further, he'd cross over into a pretechnological age of history. He reached Earth during the mid 20^th century with barely enough power to land the ship in a remote location and hide it. One message said that he'd hidden it underwater in a a big lake."

"Over the years he adopted one new identity after another and tried to mingle harmlessly with the general population, remaining a recluse in order to avoid changing history. After a few years though, he began to notice that there seemed to be slight differences from the recorded history he'd studied over the years and the events he saw unfolding around himself. There was someone in the old history lessons that seemed to be missing in the real present that he was living in. According to his messages, in order to save our version of history he decided that he was supposed to adopt the identity of this "missing" person and do what he remembered that that person had done. Towards the end of the 20^th century he began writing poetry, lyrics, music, and speculative fiction. He submitted his work to various publications in the print and electronic media of the times, and eventually he developed a small, but devoted, group of fans. He had to work hard to influence events only enough to bring about the future he remembered and grew up in, but not enough to warp it entirely. He finally succeeded and was active up until far into the 21^st century, when he finally died. He had brought about the history he'd been born into by influencing the thoughts of others with his work."

"In order for me to recognise that the song was a message from him, he published it under his real name." She named someone I recognised from my 20^th century Earth Literature classes at the University of Antares as an obscure hack writer of speculative fiction stories whose only real claim to fame was that he pioneered the use of Earth's planetary information grid as a publishing resource. Oh, and the Professor kept going on and on and on about some bar or something, somewhere, that this bozo wrote about. I'll think of it in a minute. Sue sighed again and glanced around the Mare Inebrium. "Oh, it looks like the band is ready to go back to work. I'll see you again later," Sue said as she got up from the barstool and walked over to join the band at the doorway to the small ballroom. They filed inside, and eventually I heard the music start up again.

I sat and listened for the rest of the afternoon, but they never played that song again. I did hear them play it at the concert that night, as their final encore. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. There was also a live broadcast of the concert out to the City and beyond. I think that everyone on the whole planet stood still and listened while Redshift Sue sang the blues that night. After that night, they were all over the Hyperwave, comcast, and radio with their music.

A couple of days later I had to leave Bethdish and I never met Redshift Sue again. But I hear her voice on the radio, crying out words of a love that never died. Words from a man driven by the loss of the greatest love of his life. Words to tell his wife that he would never, ever forget her. Words that echo in my mind, in the quiet times, in that long night between the stars.

Lyrics Copyright: ©1977, 1983, 1992, 2002, 2003-2007 by Dan L. Hollifield
Story Copyright: ©2003-2007 by Dan L. Hollifield

This story is not autobiographical! I am not a marooned time traveler, honest.

Actually, that's the truth. This poem was written out of my fandom for the book "Phantom of the Opera" by Gaston Leroux and also the movie "Phantom of the Paradise"-- and under the influence of the soundtrack of the movie. I'd been in some form of school band since I was ten, so I'd long ago taught part of my mind to think in terms of music- sort of. I came up with this poem while driving a tractor in ever decreasing spirals- plowing fields- driving with my brain on automatic pilot and hearing a musical daydream. I used the poem in this story because it seemed to fit the title I had coined on the Mare Inebrium Starter Kit page. I always liked that title, and finally I had a story to go with it! The text of the song is a poem I wrote- not to one of my old girlfriends, but to no single person at all. It did fit one girlfirend that came and went later in my life, but at the time the original poem was written, I had no significant other at all. The poem was originally written as part of my version of the Opera Ghost's magnum opus as detailed in the Leroux novel. There were two other poems from the same project that I wrote during that period of my life, but this is the only one that has survived the passage of the years.

I do have a working soundcard now. I'll be wasting endless time trying to write the sheet music to the song in the story. One day you will hear the way the song sounds in my mind. Then I'll be free of it at last.

 Sue's Song: Haunted (by your love...)

Copyright: ©1977, 1983, 1992, 2002, 2003 - 2007 by Dan L. Hollifield

THE END

Bio: Dan Hollifield, Aphelion's Senior Editor and Publisher, was born in 1957 at almost the same moment that Sputnik II was launched. This seems to have warped his point of view in the fact that he has always been rather a nut on the subject of spaceflight. A life-long SF and F reader, he began scribbling stories for his own amusement and for schoolwork back in the 1960s. His oldest surviving work, carefully preserved by his Mother, is a two-act play about four children finding hidden treasure in a haunted house. He began composing his first attempt at a SF novel in 1987. This manuscript led directly to his "World of Bethdish" short stories and novellas, his "Collector's Museum" series of stories, and the "Mare Inebrium" shared universe series. After having been drug online, kicking and screaming, in 1995 by noted Filksinger and Web-Guru Robert Wynne, he joined Dragon's Lair Webzine as a frequent contributor and later as Assistant Editor. His first e-published story was a Horror short in Dragon's Lair. His fiction has been published in Dragon's Lair Webzine, Titan Webzine, Steel Caves, The Writer's Club, and Aphelion Webzine. He lives with his wife in a tiny brick house near his parent's farm in the howling wilderness that is rural Madison County, Northeast of Athens, Ga. USA. He is an avid collector of firearms, swords, knives, books, and music- both vinyl records and CDs. An amateur musician, he also composes music, lyrics, and Filk as well as having been an artist all his life. One of his oil paintings, done on commission for a local fan, is soon to be featured in a book on Elvis Presley Fan-Art that will be published in England.

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