Zofya

Zofya had long ago achieved a level of fame at which everyone knew her last name, but rarely felt a need to use it. She was a singular talent, a fact made all the more evident by the unprecedented scope of her interplanetary concert tour, and her insistence on traveling to perform in the flesh, rather than relying on the industry standard remote holographic projections. Still, by the last leg of her year-long journey around the galaxy, she was as ready as anyone would be to get home to Earth and take a break. Back on board her tour ship, decompressing after what she could have sworn was meant to be her final performance, she was surprised to hear the captain announce that the next destination would be their final stop, followed by a muffled cheer from the rest of the crew. She asked her smart watch to show her the calendar, and there it was, one more show, on an exoplanet seemingly without a proper name, designated only by its star system. She felt confused, even somewhat fearful. She was tired, to be sure, but it seemed unfathomable that she'd overworked herself to a point that would have come close to affecting her memory. She called her booking agent, submerging her worried inquiries beneath innocuous chat. From contextual clues, Zofya learned (again?) that her final show would be for a VIP audience, a special request from the same party that had sent her the black ring, which her agent had given her the day before the tour began.

She'd forgotten about the ring as well, but remembered it now. She'd worn it during the first day after launch, until she'd begun to feel vaguely ill, a less than auspicious sensation to have prior to the first show of a new tour. While preparing to take a hot bath to soothe herself, she'd taken it off her finger, and almost instantly felt better. Now, she went to the bathroom in her suite and there it was, right where she had left it a year ago, on the counter next to the sink. Its persistent presence in that spot made no sense. It seemed impossible that neither she nor anyone else (her assistant, hair, makeup, wardrobe, cleaning, maintenance…) had noticed it before this moment. It should have been picked up and stowed away months ago. Even taking the assistance of artificial gravity into account, loose objects on a spaceship weren't likely to remain in one place, especially not for this long, and after so many landings and launches… Despite her uneasiness, she knew that whatever benefactors awaited her on the next planet would expect her to be wearing it, so she grabbed the ring and put it on again.

It took a few more days to reach the unnamed planet. During this time, rather than vague illness, she found herself feeling lighter, more relaxed, frequently smirking to herself: how silly she'd been to think a piece of jewelry had been able to make her feel sick in the first place. Upon touchdown, the gangway lowered, revealing not the anticipated spaceport, but an incredible expanse of lush green pasture stretching into the horizon, bounded by an equally infinite forest on one side and a wide, winding river on the other. A single person in drab brown work clothes waited nearby to welcome her entourage. Approaching with a genuine smile when he saw her, he introduced himself as Arthur and asked her to follow him, adding: "The flock is waiting."

There was no limousine, no shuttle, not even a tractor. They all just walked off the tarmac at the edge of the landing field and onto a single-lane dirt road, clearly well traveled, but currently devoid of any other vehicle or foot traffic. The road led toward a small red barn, the only visible structure.

She could see a great number of fluffy, dirty-white shapes moving around the barn. From a distance the animals could have been mistaken for sheep, but as they drew closer to the flock, she could see they possessed no discernible ears, snouts, or even what one would usually call heads. Her guide began to wax enthusiastically about his apparent charges, referring to them only as "flocklings," extolling the many virtues of their silky coats. Not wool, more like spider silk, he said, explaining how they were able to both breathe and eat without mouths or noses: through their skin. They roamed the fields of tall grass, catching grasshoppers, flies, or other insects they brushed by or that happened to land on them, the dense silk gradually pulling them further inward, closer and closer, until they were able to absorb their prey directly into their skin. The fields were for the cultivation of the insects, he said, the flocklings were purely carnivores, albeit more like mobile carnivorous plants. Each could be only partially sheared at any given time: without their coat of silk, they would be in constant danger of starving.

By this point, the flock had noticed the group approaching and began to trot over en masse to greet and inspect them. Arthur told Zofya there was nothing to fear, and that she was free to touch them, assuring her that the flocklings had extremely fine control over the behavior of their coats, down to the individual strands of silk, and would not adhere to human skin or attempt to harm anyone unless they felt threatened. Clearly, at the moment, they did not, crowding around Zofya curiously. Petting them produced a sensation quite unlike any familiar animals' fur: the strands of silk moved on their own and in response to her hands' movements, like a million tiny fingers no larger than pinpoints.

As they seemed to take almost orderly turns getting close to her and then backing away to allow others in, it dawned on her that the flocklings themselves were the VIPs. She was here to sing for them. This raised a number of questions (both about the situation and her agent) that she decided she would refrain from asking, at least for the time being. She was already here, prepared to perform, and despite all the strangeness, she could not deny she was enjoying herself.

Arthur, somewhat in the background now (along with her confounded entourage), continued his litany of praise for the flocklings, describing in great detail a number of practical and profitable human uses for the animals' silk after it had been collected and processed. The flock seemed to be drawing Zofya away from her human guide and around the barn, where she was nudged toward a crate covered by a blue tarp, upon which lay a single wireless vocal microphone. She could see no other audio equipment that it might be paired with. If there were speakers, they were hidden, like the insects, amongst the tall grass. Yet she somehow knew all she had to do was pick it up and switch it on.

Might as well get to it, she thought, and reached for the mic. She began singing the first song that popped into her head, completely a cappella. The flocklings stopped milling about, all freezing in place. None turned to face her, but it was somehow clear they were listening intently. As she ramped up toward the second chorus, a harmonic buzzing, like a well-tuned beehive, faded in from somewhere. At first she thought her team had caught up to her and were piping in a backing track, but then she realized the sound was coming from the flock itself. Their silken coats stood on end, vibrating impossibly. And then the buzzing transformed into its own chorus of voices, singing along with her. Her free hand felt very warm, and she realized the mic was somehow connected to the black ring. Likewise, the animals' song was channeling back through the ring into her. It made no sense, but making sense no longer seemed to matter. The song filled her, both from without and within, and she just kept singing, as she was always meant to do.