Historien är Något annat av Robert J Tilley.
En man strandsatta på en planet
The dust and wreckage took some time to settle, and it was several minutes after that Dr. Sidney Williams, having surmised correctly that he was the sole survivor, emerged from the only section of the ship that had remained in one piece. He gazed forlornly at the alien landscape.
Han spelar jazzband ...
There was a click, a faint whisper of irremovable surface wear from the original recording that he had always found an endearingly essential part of the performance, and Duke Ellington's Ko Ko racketed into the stillness of the alien afternoon.
Han hör ett svar ...
Some distance away, the opening bars of Duke Ellington's Ko Ko grunted springingly into being beyond the muffling barrier of the trees.
Det slår ut för att vara ett främmande varelse som efterliknar ljuden ...
It was rather, Dr. Williams sweatingly concluded, like a cross between an outsized potato sack and an octopus,..
Han följer varelsen på sin klarinett ...
Each passing day found him increasingly aware of the understanding that integrated their musical conception, something that had existed from the beginning but was now of an interweaving complexity beyond anything that he had ever remotely envisaged.
Räddningsmän dödar utlänningen och Dr. Williams blir våldsam ...
'Poor guy', a panting voice said. He must have really taken off. If anybody saved me from a thing like that, the last thing I'd do would be to try and brain them.'
Han har justerat sina minnen ...
When the ship reached Earth he was immediately rushed to a place where doctors and machines were waiting to seal off the nightmares forever behind impregnable doors, and after a time they succeeded.
men ...
... Dr. Williams would feel something that was inescapably buried inside him stir faintly, a dim and fading cadence that sounded far beyond his remembering but which briefly moved him to wonderment and an intangible longing.