The Dark Symphony

beautiful than their sounds.
    Above, the sea danced blue-green.
    "And the Lord said, 'Do not the waters of the sea show forth the face of God?" Strong smiled a self-satisfied smile. The quote had so easily rolled from his tongue that Guil was certain he could not have felt anything emotional from it, could not even have appreciated its poetic tone. It was habitual and ugly the way the scripture verses slid out of his mouth, like the sterile products of an automated factory sliding into the finished bin.
    Guil went to the glass wall and looked out, surprised by what he saw. He had expected water and ocean bottom, for he thought they were beneath the ocean. But they were above it! This bubble wall curved away from the face of a great cliff, a hundred feet from the top of the sea. He looked down and was caught up in a vertiginous moment when he saw that the lip of the window melted into the floor and that he was standing on the thick glass with nothing (nothing visible) separating him from the water.
    He hung there.
    Ahead, the ocean stretched forever into gray, moving mists that eventually obscured it. Now and then, lightning played through the higher layers of the fog, pulsated in reflection across the water. Guil wondered, seeing this magnificence for the first time, why the Musicians had not chosen to build Vivaldi here, only a mile or two away from where it was placed. Here, they would have the sea and the mist. Vaguely, he knew that the sea was associated with death. It was eternal. It produced life and claimed it. It went on. And would go on even after the Musicians had passed. Perhaps that was it. Though the Musicians were strangely fascinated with death, they were not willing to be faced with a constant reminder that death was eternal and not just a mortal entity like themselves.
    He looked down, away from the fog and lightning.
    Below, the sea dashed itself violently against the rocks that looked like craggy brown teeth. It sprayed dozens of feet into the air, foaming up the cliff face but never quite touching the window. He could faintly hear the dragon roar of it seeping through the glass. Far out, a gull swooped down out of the clouds, glided toward the cliff and disappeared into a dark aperture just above the foam line and just below the window.
    Guil turned and looked at the ceiling again. It appeared to be a slab of glass which supported the unbearable weight of an ocean, yet the ocean was below them. "How is that done?" he asked, too curious to contain the question, not particularly caring whether his ignorance made Strong feel smug.
    But Strong did not answer. A voice deep and smooth as water-licked limestone spoke up. "Mirrors. They reflect the scene from a pipe that opens on the ocean floor at the base of the cliff. It channels the reflection from mirror to mirror and throws it on the ceiling through a projector in the head of that statue of Neptune."
    He swiveled, searching the green- and blue-toned shadows for the lips that had spoken those words. He saw the man, lean and dark in the far corner next to a fish tank where thin, yellow darts swam through frond-split crystal water. A cascade of white hair, each strand thin and frizzy though the whole appeared thick, poured over his extra-large head and withered away just above shaggy white eyebrows and two gray eyes.
    "Who—" Guil began, stepping away from the window.
    "Mirrors, mirrors, mirrors. Oh, they were damn clever, those prewar Earthmen! They could pervert reality to their whims. But they were not clever enough. Little pieces like these are all they left behind."
    "Gypsy Eyes?"
    Strong stood silently by the door. He nodded.
    The fish swam unconcerned.
    Outside, the mists formed ghost bodies that dissolved in passionate embraces.
    "Mirrors are wonderful things," the white-haired one continued, oblivious to Guil's questions—or just not caring to answer them. 'They show you what you could not know otherwise. How could you know your own face without a mirror? Hmmmm? Could we have any idea what we are without mirrors to tell us? Did men, before there were mirrors, think themselves insects or look-alikes for ferocious animals? No, I guess not. They could see one another and have some idea of their own visage. But what about self? They could have a general idea about their facial appearance, but what about the individual face? Hmmmm? How could they know self? How could they ever be really certain that they were not. different from others? They