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The security officer was never going to get used to how silent the S’pht could be when they wanted to. He considered F’tha something of a friend by now, but the alien was still able to float behind him unnoticed for a good four hallways. Then he caught a glimpse of their cape out of the corner of his eye and almost shit himself.
“Fucking hell, don’t do that.”
“My apologies. I wished to observe you without disturbing your task.”
“I wouldn’t call moving furniture a task you could disturb me from.”
F’tha angled their upper body in a way that he’d learned was the equivalent of a cocked head. “Is that what this is? Furniture?”
The security officer looked down at the bulky object he had slung under his arm. A beaten-up old keyboard of the musical variety. Some of the higher register keys were missing and the volume knob was busted, but clearly someone liked the thing enough to want it put in the rec room Durandal had agreed to have built. “Well, I guess it’s technically an instrument.”
“An instrument. It controls an aspect of the ship?”
“Not that kind of instrument. It makes music.”
F’tha’s posture of confusion, accompanied by the curious flickering of the gem on their chest, told the security officer he had a long lesson ahead of him. He roped the S’pht into helping set up the speakers while they talked.
So it turned out that the S’pht did know what music was. Sort of. They had their own type of music. Given the whole shared consciousness thing, the aliens didn’t need to rely on soundwaves to communicate tone and pitch to each other. The security officer had to admit that S’pht singing sounded really damn awesome, and both he and F’tha were disappointed when they realized that there was no way for F’tha to share it with him.
“Then,” F’tha suggested, hovering eagerly over the keyboard, “I could learn to perform the human version of music?”
“You could!” the security officer agreed. He was no piano prodigy, but he could at least show F’tha how to touch the keys and produce sound. They could pick up lesson books somewhere planetside, he was sure.
There was just one problem.
“F’tha?”
“Yes?”
“You...don’t have hands, do you?”
“I do not.”
F’tha swore it was ‘of no inconvenience,’ but the security officer could damn well see how much they were moping about not getting to play the keyboard. So he did the reasonable thing: Asked a Rampant AI for gift advice.
What would you do without me? Durandal said.
“Not know what instruments a handless alien can play, you smug ass. I’m not going to make them bash their head into a drum.”
You really don’t have much imagination, do you?
Before the security officer could protest that, Durandal continued.
There. I’ve placed an order. You’ll pick it up on our next leisure stop.
That was...suspiciously painless, as far as asking for things from Durandal went.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you like them more than me.”
Easy there, Othello. No S’pht can dual wield shotguns like you can.
F’tha loved the theremin.
So did roughly half of the S’pht on board. Hardly a moment went by when the rec room and its adjacent wing wasn’t filled with a high-pitched chromatic squeal. Durandal gleefully shared every noise complaint he received with the security officer.
“I knew I shouldn’t have trusted generosity from you.”