Andromedan Deltas by Milieu

Asleep at the dashboard, in an egg-shaped chair, with a paperback of Clarke short stories leaning against a uniformed knee, you're jostled awake by the sound of a sputtering signal coming through the radio. Drifting for months between systems, you've become all too comfortable with the silence of the surrounding void, almost forgetting what the radio even sounded like.

You hurriedly put your fingers to the receiver, instinctively nudging the orange Bakelite dials to slowly guide the blue meter into a more greenish frequency band - muscle memory returns, and it's just like all those seemingly endless nights at the academy, manning the port station as a glorified air-traffic controller, logging merchant vessel after merchant vessel, with the occasional barge bearing a higher clearance than you were permitted to discuss, all the while feeling a grandiose boredom, wondering when, if ever, you'd be able to leave on one of those outgoing ships, and see if the stars somewhere else were any more interesting than the one you were stuck orbiting.

That was a long time ago, though, and you find it more than funny now to consider it in a nostalgic way - memory is a truly malleable thing, as fickle as the past may be. By now, the signal is coming in strong, with little edges of noise brushing up against the insides of the amplifier. You'd ping it for an ident, if you even knew what it was, but this sound pouring out of the dash cones was completely foreign. It began as something more static, but the more you listen to it, the more you are able to perceive details, tonal shifts, little hills and valleys of what sounds like music, if you were being honest. A steadily approaching cosm of oboes and clarinets, woodwinds that could be neither wood nor wind, a surrealistic orchestra coming from nowhere.

You glance at the positioning of the signal's origin, and feel oddly unsurprised to find that the ship has detected absolutely nothing. Just the same unwavering needle on the sheet that you've been nodding off to for the last six months. The oscilloscope is full of life, however, proving to you that what you're hearing is not just in your own mind.

Struck with an idea, you quickly pivot around the U-shaped console and open the manual system. The latches come loose with a little extra prying, having stayed inert and unused for a very long time. The stick and levers inside the box are pristine, but somehow the smell of dust still pervades. You activate the control top, flicking three sequential red switches on the underside of the panel, and the blue backlights illuminate the handles and buttons, letting you know the reins have now been passed to your hands. You grasp them hesitantly, carefully, considering every gentle pause and minute push as having a massive effect on the ship's steering. A slight whirring sound from a few decks away tells you the engines are responding properly to even your slight alterations.

It's just as you thought - the moment the ship alters course, the radio signal begins to fade again. You'll have to make careful adjustments by hand in order to follow it, and hopefully, this will lead you to wherever, or whatever, it may be. After a few tries around the compass, you manage to arc the ship slightly more northwest from its original heading, and the sounds shimmer in a beautiful harmonic unison, as if smiling, welcoming you to some new land.

After about twenty minutes of the course remaining stable with the sustained radio reception, you lock the coordinates in and return the ship to cruise control. Walking across the cabin to the viewscreen, you look at where the ship's been pointed for the first time, and you finally see it - a slowly swelling orb of white light. A different type of light, not like other stars...this light seems to be thicker, perhaps with something moving beneath its surface, like a swirling sphere made of intensely bright fog.

When you found this ship, months ago, docked with a dead captain inside, and decided to take his ident for your own and finally leave the station, you had no idea of what you might find, only a vague set of possible destinations and enough fuel to take you to all of them and then some. You never in your wildest dreams thought you'd stumble into something so...alien, profound, perfect.

The growing curtain of white slowly blankets the entire cabin, and the sound, oh what a sound it is, pealing through the ship's intercoms like the horns of angels, announcing your ascent into heaven. "Heaven," you say it out loud, and then softly chuckle. Even paradise is simply called home by those lucky enough to find it.

Tracklist

1.	Andromedan Deltas	76:57

Credits

released September 3, 2021

W/P by Brian Grainger. Recorded at White Pillar, July-August 2021, using source material from the H Is For Hologram sessions alongside the R-EW Audioholistics modular system, a Roland SH-32 digital polysynth and a Korg MS-20 analog monosynth. Mastered by The Analog Botanist. Design by Atoll Intercom Systems. Text and physical package layout by ABM&D. This is Milieu Music number MML158C. (c) + (p) 2021 Oscillog ASCAP. All lights observed.

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