It’s not that hard to play a PVC pipe flute, but it’s hard to play one well. Any junior astronaut can find a length of pipe in a loading dock, laser cut some holes and a mouthpiece, and start making an awful racket with it. But to make sounds you actually want to hear… well, that takes a lot of practice. Fortunately, if you are traveling to the asteroid belt, you’ve got plenty of time to practice. Unfortunately, if you are looking for a place where you can be alone to learn your instrument, you’ve got a problem.
The cost per square meter on an interplanetary spaceship is literally astronomical (sorry, some jokes are just too easy), and the limited amount of room for the crew on a spacecraft makes a submarine look as lush as a cruise liner. We really do have to sleep in shifts, since there aren’t enough beds for everyone in the cramped quarters.
But, like I said, the one thing we have is time, and during my first flight to the asteroid belt, I used my time to explore every centimeter of the ship. That’s how I discovered the access corridors (well, more like crawl spaces) that serviced the propulsion fuel tanks, and that was the closest thing to privacy one could get.
I spent hours nestled next to a fuel tank practicing the PVC pipe flute. I was really awful at first, all wheezes and squeaks, and I thought maybe the problem was the flute. So I went back to the shop and reran the AI tutorial on a new length of pipe. But when I went back to my corner by the tank to practice, I sounded as bad as ever. The flute was fine. I was the problem.
But I kept at it. I supposed my crewmates thought I was weird. I didn’t lift weights more than was necessary to maintain muscle mass in deep space, and I definitely didn’t binge watch obscure old series that had been uploaded into the ship’s massive mainframe. But slowly, I got a little better on the flute. Eventually, my embouchure improved, and I was able to make sounds that were actual notes. Pretty soon I could play recognizable songs.
Then, when we first approached the asteroid belt after more than a year of cruising through space, someone on the bridge essentially was supposed to gently tap on the brakes and instead pressed down on the pedal too hard. I had been perched in my practice spot working on a Bach sonata, and right on an inhale the ship gave this sudden lurch causing me to suck in air quickly, almost with a gulp.
The rest of the ship went crazy with shouting and flashing red lights until they figured out that it was just an overeager pilot leaning in too hard. But I didn’t care what was happening with the ship because on that accidental inhale I first learned how to bend a note.
I probably should have said earlier that one thing that makes the PVC pipe flute unique is that you play notes both when you exhale and when you inhale. In that regard, it’s more like a harmonica than a conventional flute. And, if you’re really good, or, in my case, really lucky, you can also bend notes on a PVC pipe if you can figure out the breathing. Like with a harmonica, a bent note is one of the most soulful, beautiful sounds there is. And a bent note played in a spaceship millions of kilometers from Earth in the dark vacuum of space is the bluesiest, most existential tone you’ve ever heard, even in the middle of a Bach sonata.
Once I learned how to bend, all I wanted to do was play. However, we were stopping at the asteroid belt because that was our destination. For the next two years, it would be all asteroid mining all the time. The fuel tanks we depleted on the way in would be converted into storage bins for precious metals on the way out. Even the access corridors were slated to be filled with ore. It would be the end of my playing
Now, I was supposed to be excited about the asteroid. After all, I had trained as an interplanetary mining engineer for years to be on one of the first mining ships to harvest an asteroid. But after the initial enthusiasm wore off, it was all mandatory double shifts managing the mining equipment. I essentially stared at a computer all day, which wasn’t much different from a boring job on Earth.
Before long, I found myself thinking less about the mining robots I was monitoring and more about playing the flute. I began composing songs in my head and wishing I had time to play. I had found the thing I was really good at. And the less I cared about my job, the more I noticed how badly things were going. Robots started breaking down. My crewmates squabbled. We fell behind schedule, and I realized we might be stuck here for even longer, which was unbearable.
Soon after, the cave-in happened. We lost dozens of robots, repairs were slow, and we burned through supplies and equipment. Soon, the accountants back on Earth saw that we were losing money every day we stayed on the asteroid. They made us abort the mission. We were a disappointed and sullen bunch, except for me. I was going to have an additional year to practice the PVC pipe flute, and then I was going to quit this job and start playing the flute full time.
When we left the asteroid belt, some of my crewmates cried, and it was a dour mood. But I kept to myself and kept practicing, getting a little better every day. I couldn’t even feel bad that my sabotage had caused the cave-in. My future was just around the bend.
Jim O'Loughlin is the author of the science fiction novel, The Cord (BHC Press), a Midwest Book Award finalist.