The Best of Connie Willis: Award-Winning Stories

  Civilized behavior. That was it. The Altairi, like Aunt Judith sitting in our living room glaring, had been waiting for a sign that we were civilized. And singing—correction, group singing—was that sign. But was it an arbitrary rule of etiquette, like white shoes and engraved invitations, or was it a symbol of something else? I thought of Calvin telling his chattering seventh-graders to line up, and the milling, giggling, chaotic muddle of girls coming together in an organized, beautifully behaved, civilized line.

  Coming together. That was the civilized behavior the Altairi had been waiting for a sign of. And they’d seen precious little of it in the nine months they’d been here: the disorganized commission with members quitting and those who were left not listening to anyone; that awful rehearsal where the basses couldn’t get the entrance right to save them; the harried shoppers in the mall, dragging their screaming children after them. The piped-in choir singing “While Shepherds Watched” might have been the first indication they’d seen—correction, heard—that we were capable of getting along with each other at all.

  No wonder they’d sat down right there in the middle of the mall. They must have thought, like Aunt Judith, “Well, it’s about time!” But then why hadn’t they done the equivalent of calling us and asking us to go see Les Miz?

  Maybe they hadn’t been sure that what they’d seen—correction, heard—was what they thought it was. They’d never seen people sing, except for Calvin and those pathetic basses. They’d seen no signs we were capable of singing beautifully in harmony.

  But “While Shepherds Watched” had convinced them it might be possible, which was why they’d followed us around and why they’d sat and slept and gone astray whenever they heard more than one voice, hoping we’d get the hint, waiting for further proof.

  In which case we should be in the auditorium, listening to the Sing instead of in this soundproof room. Especially since the fact that their ship was getting ready to take off indicated they’d given up and decided they were mistaken after all. “Come on,” I said to the Altairi and stood up. “I need to show you something.” I shoved the table away from the door, and opened it.

  On Calvin. “Oh, good, you’re here,” I said. “I— Why aren’t you in directing?”

  “I announced an intermission so I could tell you something. I think I’ve got it, the thing the Altairi have been responding to,” he said, grabbing me by the arms, “the reason they reacted to Christmas songs. I thought of it while I was directing ‘Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.’ What do nearly all Christmas songs have in them?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Chestnuts? Santa Claus? Bells?”

  “Close,” he said. “Choirs.”

  Choirs? “We already knew they responded to songs sung by choirs,” I said, confused.

  “Not just to songs sung by choirs. Songs about choirs. Christmas carols being sung by the choir, angel choirs, children’s choirs, wassailers, carolers, strike the harp and join the chorus,” he said. “The angels in ‘Angels We Have Heard on High’ are sweetly singing o’er the plains. In ‘It Came Upon the Midnight Clear,’ all the world gives back the song they sing. They’re all about singing,” he said excitedly. “‘That glorious song of old,’ ‘whom angels greet with anthems sweet.’ Look,” he flipped through the pages of his music, pointing out phrases, “‘oh, hear the angel voices,’ ‘as men of old have sung,’ ‘whom shepherds guard and angels sing,’ ‘let men their songs employ.’ There are references to singing in songs by Randy Travis, the Peanuts kids, Paul McCartney, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. It wasn’t just that ‘While Shepherds Watched’ was sung by a choir. It was that it was a song about choirs singing. And not just singing, but what they’re singing.” He thrust the song in front of me, pointing to the last verse. “‘Goodwill, henceforth from heaven to men.’ That’s what they’ve been trying to communicate to us.”

  I shook my head. “It’s what they’ve been waiting for us to communicate to them. Just like Aunt Judith.”

  “Aunt Judith?”

  “I’ll explain later. Right now we’ve got to prove we’re civilized before the Altairi leave.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “We sing to them, or rather, the All-City Holiday Ecumenical Sing does.”

  “What do we sing?”

  I wasn’t sure it mattered. I was pretty certain what they were looking for was proof we could cooperate and work together in harmony, and in that case, “Mele Kalikimaka” would work as well as “The Peace Carol.” But it wouldn’t hurt to make things as clear to them as we could. And it would be nice if it was also something that Reverend Thresher couldn’t use as ammunition for his Galaxywide Christian Crusade.

  “We need to sing something that will convince the Altairi we’re a civilized species,” I said, “something that conveys goodwill and peace. Especially peace. And not religion, if that’s possible.”

  “How much time have we got to write it?” Calvin asked. “And we’ll have to get copies made—”

  My cell phone rang. The screen showed it was Dr. Morthman. “Hang on,” I said, hitting talk. “I should be able to tell you in a second. Hello?”

  “Where are you?” Dr. Morthman shouted. “The ship’s beginning its final ignition cycle.”

  I whirled around to make sure the Altairi were still there. They were, thank goodness, and still glaring. “How long does the final cycle take?” I asked.

  “They don’t know,” Dr. Morthman said, “ten minutes at the outside. If you don’t get here immediately—”

  I hung up.

  “Well?” Calvin said. “How much time have we got?”

  “None,” I said.

  “Then we’ll have to use something we’ve already got,” he said and began riffling through his sheaf of music, “and something people know the harmony to. Civilized . . . civilized . . . I think . . .” He found what he was looking for and scanned it. “. . . Yeah, if I change a couple of words, this should do the trick. Do you think the Altairi understand Latin?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them.”

  “Then we’ll just do the first two lines. Wait five minutes—”

  “Five minutes—?”

  “So I can brief everybody on the changes, and then bring the Altairi in.”

  “Okay,” I said, and he took off at a run for the auditorium.

  There was an expectant buzz in the audience when we came through the double doors, and the ranks of choirs arrayed around the stage, a sea of maroon and gold and green and purple robes, began whispering to each other behind their music.

  Calvin had apparently just finished his briefing. Some of the choirs and the audience were busily scribbling notes on their music, and passing pencils, and asking each other questions. The orchestra, on one side of the stage, was warming up in a jumbled cacophony of screeches and hoots and blats.

  On the other side, the sopranos of the Mile-High Women’s Chorus were apparently filling the altos in on my interrupting rehearsal the other night, because they all turned to glare at me. “I think it’s ridiculous that we can’t sing the words we know,” an elderly woman wearing gloves and a hat with a veil said to her companion.

  Her companion nodded. “If you ask me, they’re carrying this entire ecumenical thing too far. I mean, humans are one thing, but aliens!”

  There’s no way this is going to work, I thought, looking over at Calvin’s seventh-graders, who were leaning over the backs of each other’s chairs, giggling and chewing gum. Belinda was text-messaging someone on her cell phone, and Kaneesha was listening to her iPod. Chelsea had her hand up and was calling, “Mr. Ledbetter! Mr. Ledbetter, Shelby took my music.”

  Over in the orchestra, the percussionist was practicing crashing his cymbals. It’s hopeless, I thought, looking over at the glaring Altairi. There’s no way we can convince them we’re sentient, let alone civilized.

  My cell phone rang. And that’s it, the straw that’s going to break the camel’s back, I thought, fumbling for it. Now e
veryone, even the musician with the cymbals, was glaring at me. “How rude!” the elderly woman in the white gloves said.

  “The ship’s started its countdown!” Dr. Morthman bellowed in my ear.

  I hit “end” and turned the phone off. “Hurry,” I mouthed to Calvin, and he nodded and stepped up on the dais.

  He tapped the music stand with his baton, and the entire auditorium fell silent. “Adeste Fideles,” he said, and everyone opened their music.

  “Adeste Fideles?” What’s he doing? I thought. “O come, all ye faithful” isn’t what we need. I ran mentally through the lyrics: “Come ye to Bethlehem . . . come let us adore him . . .” No, no, not religious!

  But it was too late. Calvin had already spread his hands out, palms up, and lifted them, and everyone was getting to their feet. He nodded to the orchestra, and they began playing the introduction to “Adeste Fideles.”

  I turned to look at the Altairi. They were glaring even more condemningly than usual. I moved between them and the doors.

  The symphony was reaching the end of the introduction. Calvin glanced at me. I smiled, I hoped encouragingly, and held up crossed fingers. He nodded and then raised his baton again and brought it down.

  “Have you ever been to a Sing?” Calvin had said. “It’s pretty impressive.” There had to be nearly four thousand people in that auditorium, all of them singing in perfect harmony, and if they’d been singing “The Chipmunks Song,” it would still have been awe-inspiring. But the words they were singing couldn’t have been more perfect if Calvin and I had written them to order. “‘Sing, earthly choirs,’” they trilled, “‘sing in exultation. Sing to the citizens of heaven above,’” and the Altairi glide-waddled up the aisle to the stage and sat down at Calvin’s feet.

  I ducked outside to the hall and called Dr. Morthman. “What’s happening with the ship?” I asked him.

  “Where are you?” he demanded. “I thought you said you were on your way over here.”

  “There’s a lot of traffic,” I said. “What’s the ship doing?”

  “It’s aborted its ignition sequence and shut down its lights,” he said.

  Good, I thought. That means what we’re doing is working.

  “It’s just sitting there on the ground.”

  “How appropriate,” I murmured.

  “What do you mean by that?” he said accusingly. “Spectrum analysis shows the Altairi aren’t in their ship. You’ve got them, don’t you? Where are you and what have you done to them? If—”

  I hung up, switched off my phone, and went back inside. They’d finished “Adeste Fideles” and were singing “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.” The Altairi were still sitting at Calvin’s feet. “‘. . . Reconciled,’” the assemblage sang, “‘Joyful, all ye nations rise,’” and the Altairi rose.

  And rose, till they were a good two feet above the aisle. There was a collective gasp, and everyone stopped singing and stared at them floating there.

  No, don’t stop, I thought, and hurried forward, but Calvin had it under control. He turned a glare worthy of Aunt Judith on his seventh-grade girls, and they swallowed hard and started singing again, and after a moment everyone else recovered themselves and joined in to finish the verse.

  When the song ended, Calvin turned and mouthed at me, “What do I do next?”

  “Keep singing,” I mouthed back.

  “Singing what?”

  I shrugged him an “I don’t know,” and mouthed, “What about this?” and pointed at the fourth song on the program.

  He grinned, turned back to his choirs, and announced, “We will now sing, ‘There’s a Song in the Air.’”

  There was a rustle of pages, and they began singing. I eyed the Altairi warily, looking for a lessening in elevation, but they continued to hover, and when the choir reached, “‘and the beautiful sing,’” it seemed to me their glares became slightly less fierce.

  “‘And that song from afar has swept over the earth,’” the assemblage sang, and the auditorium doors burst open and Dr. Morthman, Reverend Thresher, and dozens of FBI agents and police and reporters and cameramen came rushing in. “Stay where you are,” one of the FBI agents shouted.

  “Blasphemous!” Reverend Thresher roared. “Look at this! Witches, homosexuals, liberals—!”

  “Arrest that young woman,” Dr. Morthman said, pointing at me, “and the young man directing—” He stopped and gaped at the Altairi hovering above the stage. Flashes began to go off, reporters started talking into microphones, and Reverend Thresher positioned himself squarely in front of one of the cameras and clasped his hands. “Oh, Lord,” he shouted, “drive Satan’s demons out of the Altairi!”

  “No!” I shouted to Calvin’s seventh-graders, “don’t stop singing,” but they already had. I looked desperately at Calvin. “Keep directing!” I said, but the police were already moving forward to handcuff him, stepping cautiously around the Altairi, who were drifting earthward like slowly leaking balloons.

  “And teach these sinners here the error of their ways,” Dr. Thresher was intoning.

  “You can’t do this, Dr. Morthman,” I said desperately. “The Altairi—”

  He grabbed my arm and dragged me to one of the police officers. “I want both of them charged with kidnapping,” he said, “and I want her charged with conspiracy. She’s responsible for this entire—” He stopped and stared past me.

  I turned around. The Altairi were standing directly behind me, glaring. The police officer, who’d been about to clamp a pair of handcuffs on me, let go of my wrist and backed away, and so did the reporters and the FBI.

  “Your excellencies,” Dr. Morthman said, taking several steps back, “I want you to know the commission had nothing to do with this. We knew nothing about it. It’s entirely this young woman’s fault. She . . .”

  “We acknowledge your greetings,” the Altairus in the center said, bowing to me, “and greet you in return.”

  A murmur of surprise rumbled through the auditorium, and Dr. Morthman stammered, “Y-you speak English?”

  “Of course,” I said and bowed to the Altairi. “It’s nice to finally be able to communicate with you.”

  “We welcome you into the company of citizens of the heavens,” the one on the end said, “and reciprocate your offers of goodwill, peace on earth, and chestnuts.”

  “We assure you that we come bearing gifts as well,” the Altairus on the other end said.

  “It’s a miracle!” Reverend Thresher shouted. “The Lord has healed them! He has unlocked their lips!” He dropped to his knees and began to pray. “Oh, Lord, we know it is our prayers which have brought this miracle about—”

  Dr. Morthman bounded forward. “Your excellencies, allow me to be the first to welcome you to our humble planet,” he said, extending his hand. “On behalf of the government of the—”

  The Altairi ignored him. “We had begun to think we had erred in our assessment of your world,” the one who’d spoken before said to me, and the one next to her? him? said, “We doubted your species was fully sentient.”

  “I know,” I said. “I doubt it myself sometimes.”

  “We also doubted you understood the concept of accord,” the one on the other end said, and turned and glared pointedly at Calvin’s wrists.

  “I think you’d better un-handcuff Mr. Ledbetter,” I said to Dr. Morthman.

  “Of course, of course,” he said, motioning to the police officer. “Explain to them it was all a little misunderstanding,” he whispered to me, and the Altairi turned to glare at him and then at the police officer.

  When Calvin was out of the handcuffs, the one on the end said, “As the men of old, we are with gladness to be proved wrong.”

  So are we, I thought. “We’re delighted to welcome you to our planet,” I said.

  “Now if you’ll accompany me back to DU,” Dr. Morthman cut in, “we’ll arrange for you to go to Washington to meet with the president and—”

  The Altairi began to glare again.
Oh, no, I thought, and looked frantically at Calvin. “We have not yet finished greeting the delegation, Dr. Morthman,” Calvin said. He turned to the Altairi. “We would like to sing you the rest of our greeting songs.”

  “We wish to hear them,” the Altairus in the center said, and the six of them immediately turned, walked back up the aisle, and sat down.

  “I think it would be a good idea if you sat down, too,” I said to Dr. Morthman and the FBI agents.

  “Can some of you share your music with them?” Calvin said to the people in the last row. “And help them find the right place?”

  “I have no intention of singing with witches and homo—” Reverend Thresher began indignantly, and the Altairi all turned to glare at him. He sat down, and an elderly man in a yarmulke handed him his music.

  “What do we do about the words to the ‘Hallelujah Chorus’?” Calvin whispered to me, and the Altairi stood up and walked back down the aisle to us.

  “There is no need to alter your joyful songs. We wish to hear them with the native words,” the one in the center said.

  “We have a great interest in your planet’s myths and superstitions,” the one on the end said, “the child in the manger, the lighting of the Kwanzaa menorah, the bringing of toys and teeth to children. We are eager to learn more.”

  “We have many questions,” the next one in line said. “If the child was born in a desert land, then how can King Herod have taken the children on a sleigh ride?”

  “Sleigh ride?” Dr. Morthman said, and Calvin looked inquiringly at me.

  “‘All children young to sleigh,’” I whispered.

  “Also, if holly is jolly, then why does it bark?” the one on the other end said. “And, Mr. Ledbetter, is Ms. Yates your girlfriend?”

  “There will be time for questions, negotiations, and gifts when the greetings have been completed,” the second Altairus on the left, the one who hadn’t said anything up till then, said, and I realized he must be the leader. Or the choir director, I thought. When he spoke, the Altairi instantly formed themselves into pairs, walked back up the aisle, and sat down.

  I picked up Calvin’s baton and handed it to him. “What do you think we should sing first?” he asked me.