"Thank you. Thank you very much."
Elvis Aaron Presley inclined his head in a half-bow, then straightened and executed a front-kick-double-punch combination, turned, and walked off the stage. In the amphitheater behind him, the assembled crowd applauded wildly with hands, tentacles, wings, tails, and (for the sessile, silicon-based Q’annch’ai) tympani.
Grinning, Elvis turned back, raised his hands for quiet, and cued J’vannitkaal, the leader of the Elvis Presley Interstellar Touring Band. "Jailhouse Rock, Johnny, four bars."
Three encores later, Elvis was finally able to leave the building. As he settled into the adaptive-cocoon seat in the band’s tour shuttlepod, he ran one jewel-laden hand through his thick, wavy hair, marveling for the thousandth time at the lack of sweat (and grease).
"Damn, Johnny, a show like that back on Earth would’ve had me sweating like a pig and panting like a hound dog on a hot day in August," Elvis said. "Now I’m – what, about sixty or seventy years old? – all this time-dilation stuff is too confusing for a small-town Southern boy like me – and I could do another show right this minute. Your people fixed me up better’n I ever was."
J’vannitkaal nodded. (Actually, the Vin-zlati guitarist extended and retracted his neck several times in a disturbingly turtle-like fashion, but Elvis had pretty much gotten used to it.) "You were all but dead when our pilgrims reached you," he/she said. "They were shocked at what they found – you looked so different from the Elvis they knew from the intercepted broadcasts of your movies."
Elvis sighed, glancing down at his trim, muscular body. "I was near three hundred pounds, I think, liver almost shot, arteries clogged, full of every kind of pill I could bully out of them so-called doctors. I would’ve been dead inside a year if your people hadn’t rescued me from myself."
"It is sad that your people had to believe you to be dead, especially in such an undignified way," J’vannitkaal said. "Still, there would have been too many questions and complications if we had not left a replicated body in your place."
Elvis nodded. "Leastwise this way Lisa Marie got her inheritance a little sooner. And I got to tour in a better-than-brand-new body ‘mongst folks that still appreciated an old rockabilly."
"It has been an honor for me – for all of us – to serve the King," J’vannitkaal said.
Husshaprit, the band’s drummer, floated in from the next compartment on his transport pad. Something that sounded a lot like a Gene Krupa drum solo emerged from the dinner-plate-size tympanum on his head.
"Good news, Elvis," J’vannitkaal said. "Hushie says that a probe passed within a few light-years of Earth recently, and was able to capture transmissions of some more contemporary musical entertainment than we have seen in some time. He/she has arranged for a copy of the datastream to be transferred to our on-board systems."
"All right," Elvis said. "Let’s see what those British long-hairs types have been up to."
Some time later, Elvis slumped in his seat, shaking his head. "I gotta go back," he said. "That stuff we just saw, that just ain’t right."
"I thought the young men harmonized well," J’vannitkaal said hesitantly. "Their – ah – dancing – was somewhat odd, but –"
"The Four Tops, The Temptations, even the Commodores – them boys could harmonize better’n these sleazy-looking punks, and they put their hearts into the music," Elvis muttered. "These fuzz-faced, sloppy-dressing fakers got as much soul as one of them plastic fashion dolls Lisa Marie used to play with. In Sink – they should be put in the garbage disposal, is what. Back-alley Boys, Owe-down, all of ’em are the same. I gotta go back, Johnny, right away!"
"But to travel to Earth, we will have to cancel the rest of this tour," J’vannitkaal protested. "Many thousands of your fans will be disappointed."
"We’ll be back," Elvis said. "Everybody out here lives pretty near forever, anyway, so they’ll have another chance to see us soon enough. But my people back on Earth – if they make it to a hundred, it’s a big thing. Having to waste a bunch of good listening years on that stuff – well, It. Just. Ain’t. Right."
J’vannitkaal had taken years to learn to interpret The King’s facial expressions, but he/she suspected that he/she could have understood the look of outrage on Elvis’s face on the first day he/she had met him. He/she knew there was no point in arguing. "I will make the arrangements to cancel the current tour, and charter a hyperlight transport to carry – you, or the entire band? – to Earth."
Elvis frowned. "The entire band, of course, Johnny," he said. "You boys are as good as any I ever played with, and you know all my songs, including the new ones. If I’m gonna knock them punks off the charts, I need to show them folks what music is supposed to sound like."
J’vannitkaal’s neck retracted until his lower mandible was partially hidden by the bony plates protecting his torso. On one tentacle, he/she was horrified at the prospect of exposing the mixed group of decidedly non-humanoid musicians to the kind of paranoid society that had produced Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Invaders from Mars, and Earth Versus the Flying Saucers, to say nothing (mercifully) of Mars Needs Women. On the other tentacle, he/she was glad to know that The King had such respect for the band members, and intended to return with them to tour the galaxy once his mission had been completed. On the other other tentacle, even traveling at hyperlight speeds, they would be absent from the galactic entertainment scene for many years. The continuous rebroadcasts of The King’s movies and coverage of earlier stops on the current tour might slow the decline of interest in Elvis and the band, but surely would not stop it. By the time they returned to the Orion Arm, they might be reduced to playing for tips in sleazy spaceport bars.
J’vannitkaal began the complex and angst-generating task of dismantling the tour schedule while Elvis retired to his private quarters to consider what material they would use to win back the hearts and ears of Earth. It had been a great ride while it lasted, he/she reflected. The members of the band had been well-regarded but obscure session musicians when Elvis arrived; now they were all famous, and wealthy by most standards.
It was only fair that the band did something to repay the man who had given them so much.
***
The chartered ship reached Earth orbit within about three subjective days, which J’vannitkaal told Elvis was about four years Earth time. They spent the first few days of their sojourn monitoring television signals, including digital streams that had not existed when Elvis left the planet back in 1977. To Elvis’s consternation, most of the "boy bands" he had come to defeat had already faded into obscurity. The trip was not wasted, however, for they soon learned that several waves of similar groups had come and gone in the intervening years. All the groups shared a number of traits: they generally had four or five members, all teenagers or men in their early twenties; they depended heavily on harmonizing to compensate for unexceptional individual voices; they all danced (to use the word in the loosest sense) and dressed according to the latest trends.
"I don’t know, Johnny," Elvis lamented. "These groups are like weeds – they spring up, get ploughed under, and then another bunch pops up out of the dirt. And some of them other acts are worse – screamin’ and grabbin’ their private parts on stage, swearin’ every other word. Some of them don’t even sing, they just chant words that kinda rhyme. There’s so much bad stuff being sold as music, I don’t know what we should go after first."
J’vannitkaal draped a comforting tentacle over Elvis’s shoulder. "Sometimes the best thing is to ignore the weeds, and plant the most beautiful flowers you can. If the flowers are strong, they will push the weeds aside."
"You’re right, Johnny!" Elvis said. "Tell the roadies we’re gonna play a concert in the first big venue we can find."
J’vannitkaal consulted a list he had made of upcoming events advertised by the various large stadiums and concert halls. "I believe I have just the place. We will have to share the stage, at least briefly, with the group that is scheduled to play – but our crew can ensure that any dispute is settled quickly." He gestured with one tentacle in the direction of the rear compartment, where the Mahnghok that doubled as setup crew and security guards were playing poker (as taught by The King himself).
Elvis grinned. "Yeah, I reckon that Kuhrk and Whallt can calm down anybody who gets rowdy pretty quick." Eight-foot-tall armor-plated octopoids tended to garner a lot of respect from all but a few (even larger and better-equipped) species.
Thus it was that the screaming mob of Jazz Boyz fans got an unexpected bonus at about the half-way point of the concert they had paid dearly to see. First, Kuhrk and Whallt flickered into existence in a vacant spot near the middle of the stage. The crowd cheered wildly, thrilled by what they thought was a special effect making its debut at this performance. The Jazz Boyz and their technicians and security guards reacted somewhat differently.
They shrieked, hitting notes that they would never have attempted under normal circumstances, and scattered like rabbits fleeing a wolf. JayTee, "the cutest one", made the mistake of leaping into the audience, where he was quickly stripped of all his ill-fitting clothing and made to vanish by the especially-obsessive fans occupying the first few rows of the crowd.
By the time the last of the Jazz Boyz and their associates had made their exits from the stage area, Kuhrk and Whallt had swept the backup band’s instruments and other paraphernalia aside, making room for Elvis’s group. First, J’vannitkaal appeared, carrying what looked like a cross between a Stratocaster and a test-tube rack; then Husshaprit, with a few drums (although he/she would provide most of the percussion through his/her own primary tympanum); then H’obrrtal and Vhill, with modified bass guitar and black monolith, respectively. (The latter object was the equivalent of an organ/piano/synthesizer, in the same sense that a Ferrari is the equivalent of a skateboard.)
The audience had grown quiet, finally realizing that the Jazz Boyz had left the building, and their replacements were by no stretch of the imagination a local band.
"Bring back the Boyz!" one girl shrieked. Others took up the cry, and soon the stadium was vibrating with the force of fifty thousand chanting voices.
J’vannitkaal stroked a decorative stud on his guitar, signaling the orbiting ship. "Ladies and – um, ladies," he said, his voice amplified by a Ch’invall resonance field, "I give you The King – Mr. Elvis – Aaron – Presley!"
Elvis appeared in a flash of golden light (which was a special effect, as the teleport beam did not normally waste energy on fireworks), his jumpsuit-clad back to the crowd. He began to tap one foot, and the band took up the beat.
The crowd continued to chant, but as curiosity overwhelmed their mob instinct, the volume of the chant and the number of participants quickly dwindled.
Elvis raised one arm, and then snapped it down to his side as he spun to face the crowd.
They launched into Jailhouse Rock, and the crowd fell silent. Some of them had heard the song before, seen the movie of the same name, but had laughed at it as ancient stuff that even their parents thought was uncool. For others, "Elvis" was the name of a retired figure skater, or a punk rocker-turned-crooner.
But there was something about this music that seemed to resonate in their blood and bones. By the time Elvis and the band segued into Heartbreak Hotel, most of them were swaying and clapping in time.
They did Blue Suede Shoes. They did Hound Dog. They worked their way through Can’t Help Falling in Love, and In the Ghetto, and Suspicious Minds.
The crowd was on its feet, dancing, clapping, feeling the music instead of drooling over the musicians (although they were definitely appreciative of the way the sequined jumpsuit clung to Elvis’s lean but muscular form).
Elvis struck a final blow for "real music" when he signaled the band to play the intro to one of the songs he had written while touring the K’th’chaq Imperium. Starshine in My Heart had them fainting in their seats, and brought a shower of training bras, hotel room keys, and (he guessed) orthodontic appliances down on the stage.
Elvis fell silent, and raised both arms into the air, holding the pose until the crowd gradually grew quiet. Then, as the band members and their instruments flickered out like the flames of candles that have melted down to puddles, he said, "Thank you. Thank you very much." To renewed waves of screaming and applause, he waved, lowered his head, and vanished, this time surrounded by a soft pink glow that faded slowly after he was gone.
Back on the ship, Elvis said, "I think we did good, Johnny. I think maybe they learned something tonight, the girls in the audience, and them fools that ran off when Kuhrk and Whallt beamed in."
"We have the recordings of the concert, and will have them converted into formats compatible with the Earthly communications networks shortly," J’vannitkaal said. "And, of course, all the recordings of your old work will be remembered and made widely available again."
Elvis stretched, wiped non-existent sweat from his forehead, and laughed. "I figure there’s boys down there that play our kind of music, but never got anybody to listen before. I think they’ll get their chance now, if them music executives got a brain to think with."
"Home, then?" J’vannitkaal asked. "Our collective home, that is, out there?"
"For now," Elvis said. "But I think we’ll have to keep a closer watch on this place, to make sure things go right from now on." Elvis threw a playful punch that struck J’vannitkaal squarely in the plastrum. The hollow thunk caught Husshaprit’s attention, and he/she made a quizzical cloppity-thump sound in return.
"It’s okay, Hushie," Elvis said. "Me’n Johnny were just horsing around."
To J’vannitkaal, Elvis said, "Might as well get moving, Johnny. The sooner we get back, the sooner we’ll be playing for the fans." He turned and climbed through the hatch to join Kuhrk and Whallt’s poker game.
Privately, J’vannitkaal wondered how long it would be before some fad worse than the Boy Bands, worse than the rappers, spread over the Earth like a disease. Then he/she had a truly frightening thought: in the years that they had been away from the interstellar concert circuit, how had the recordings that had led to their mission to Earth been received by the listeners in the Orion arm? He/she imagined "boy bands" galumphing across the stage on segmented, armored legs, gelatinous pseudopodia, and tentacles – and fervently wished that he/she could get that horrible picture out of his/her head.
He/she signaled the bridge and ordered, "Set course for home, and get under way immediately. I will pay double if we make it back in less than three Elvis days subjective!" He/she could only hope that would be soon enough.
The End
Copyright © 2001 by Robert Moriyama
Robert Moriyama is a 40-something systems analyst busy analyzing the systems at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, part way through a multi-billion dollar development project. He has been reading SF, horror, and fantasy for most of his life, and writing it every now and then. Stories have appeared in the late, lamented Titan webzine, Dementia webzine, and Aphelion, most recently With These Hands (Aphelion, November). bmoriyam@pathcom.com or Bmoriyama@aol.com
E-mail: bmoriyam@pathcom.com
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