The Sirens' Last Lament

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  Seven years passed between that night my family listened to the song the sirens’ sent to us and the moment we reassembled in our living room to watch the ceremony commemorating the start to the construction of the Starship Diana, the vessel that would take mankind to the sirens so that we could listen, firsthand, to their melodies. As I watched those unrecognizable components join together in lunar orbit, I vowed that I would one day be among those who braved the winking starlight. I promised I would never fear the sirens’ song, and I promised I would never accept the doom the budding Black Sun Temple preached. I would be a man of the future, and I would work to spread man’s influence into the cosmos.

  It’s been sixteen years since I made that promise, but that night I first watched the Starship Diana’s ceremony feels like a century ago whenever I review it from the privacy of my Ganymede apartment. I have hopped into the stars. I have seen the sirens so many times. I have so often heard them sing. I have lost an arm, and I have lost so much of my face. I have arrived upon this cold, Jupiter moon to administer to so much killing. I’m unsure if I should feel grateful or resentful for what the stars have given me, but I know I would again make that promise to hurl myself into the heavens.

  The memory of the Starship Diana still inspires wonder in my heart. It took an army of engineers three years to construct a light drive engine large enough to blink such a vessel between solar systems. Nations threatened to bankrupt their coffers to acquire the steel and glass for such a ship. When those resources ran dry, those nations printed new monies and fought new wars in order to contribute components the Starship Diana demanded. Each night, the broadcast news updated us on the ship’s progress, so that those of us on Earth who sacrificed could see the starship’s length expanding until from aft to bow it stretched nearly three miles. One-hundred and ten levels rose from the starship’s deck, and the most revered treasures and artifacts held by any museum filled each room. The starship held a dozen libraries brimming with books of science and culture. Expansive greenhouses carried orchards and grasslands. Botanical gardens bloomed in Earth’s most exotic flowers. Rockets delivered an entire zoo of our planet’s animals to the starship so that we might present those sirens with a menagerie of our home world’s life. The Starship Diana was built immense so that humankind could share all it had to offer to the sirens in exchange for that alien song.

  None of the libraries or menageries compared to the magnificence of the concert hall housed beneath the golden dome rising above the decks from the center of the starship’s shape. Close to five thousand attendees could gather beneath that dome. Marble pillars framed a massive stage for musicians and dramatists. Overhead, a planetarium projected the stars as seen in Earth’s night sky, so that the hearts of those who gathered beneath the dome would not too badly pine for their home. No expense was spared for that concert hall, for mankind dreamed that the sirens would deem that dome’s splendor a worthy place to sing.

  Those who shaved their heads and inked that icon of a black sun upon their bald crowns shouted that the starship would deliver doom to us all. Those of the Black Sun Temple called the Diana a blasphemy of vanity and gluttony, called it a mockery of wasted treasure constructed by a world growing increasingly poor.

  Each night, I gathered in front of our home’s television to watch the Diana’s construction, dreaming that I might be granted a ticket to board the starship, that I would be among those who greeted the sirens. Those who funded and built the starship held closely the secret of those who would be granted a berth amid that vessel’s decks. Rumors whispered that, once more, only the wealthiest would afford a cabin upon the Diana. Rumors whispered that all that golden glimmer would hide an army, that it would be soldiers who first gazed with their own eyes upon the sirens. Some rumors claimed the starship would carry no one at all, that the ship itself was mankind’s first gift offered to that singing race of aliens.

  None of those rumors, however, proved correct. The truth of who would be granted a ticket to board the Starship Diana turned out to be more splendid than anyone had imagined.

  Of course, there would be diplomats. Of course, there would be tycoons. Of course, there would be soldiers, bureaucrats, figureheads and monarchs.

  But even our old world was surprised upon learning that musicians, painters and poets would occupy the majority of those granted tickets to board the Diana.

  The starship would carry the most imaginative minds our home could gather. Our most creative men and women would serve as our emissaries to the sirens. Upon the Diana, those artists would be served by a staff of waiters, concierges, masseuses, cooks, and maids like never before gathered. The sirens’ song had changed our priorities. Suddenly it was the artist instead of the tycoon, the artist instead of the scientist, the artist instead of the solider, who was asked to represent mankind as we took our first step into the cosmos.

  Yet few answered the first call that went out to bring those artists to the rockets that would lift them to the mighty starship awaiting them in lunar orbit. Earth had turned gray in so many ways. As had so many of species that had once given our planet so much color, the creatures named artist neared extinction. Many an insurance broker spent a few hours on the weekend strumming an out of tune guitar. Many a doctor occasionally tried his or her hand painting the color by number canvasses of parrots and sports cars. Many an administer took a little poetic license to add flourish to their inter-office memorandum. But few artists remained who devoted their lives to the pursuit of the creative craft. So few remained who chose to chase the aesthetic ideal, who strained their eyes to see the perfect shadow and line a canvas demanded. Few remained who lost hours in building the perfect sentence. Few remained sitting at the piano to discover the correct melody.

  Thus the Starship Diana waited to engage her light drive engine that would blink it to the sirens’ world. Man realized too late that his world had nearly emptied of the pure artist. Man realized too late how gray his once blue and green marble of a planet had become. Though the sirens’ melody caressed the ear so sweetly, those who issued tickets for the Starship Diana found the best artists they could, no matter the lurking sense that mankind might fail to return the sirens’ song with what was truly deserved. The hungriest and most capable of the artists were given the most luxurious cabins, and the remaining cabins were filled with the housewives who occasionally dabbled in watercolors, with the welder who sometimes meshed bits of metal together to shape rudimentary statues, and with the salesmen who enjoyed hearing the sound of his or her voice singing above a steaming shower.

  Those who accepted those tickets to board the Starship Diana were not the artists the world once knew. They were nothing like those ghosts of ages long past, whose masterpieces crowded the Diana’s galleries, whose symphonies would echo beneath the starship’s golden dome. But they were the best the world could offer. There would be no more time to paint another canvas in Diana’s opulent studios. There would be no more time for the poet to refine his words by filling notebooks with smudged ink.

  The sirens’ song hummed, and mankind remained determine to answer its call. No matter the reservations that may have been felt concerning the talent housed upon her decks, the moment came for Diana to depart. The starship’s massive light drive engine hummed. Space shimmered around the starship’s form. A captain nodded, a button was pressed, and the Starship Diana blinked invisible as it hopped to the sirens’ distant world.