And yet, of all her students, it was she who had come to the piece Shizuka had left unfinished so many years ago.

Bartók. Sonata for Solo Violin.

Shizuka looked at her copy. She looked at her own notes.

She breathed. She reached for her violin.

“Katrina.”

Katrina had fallen asleep in her studio. She had found a PDF of the score. She had spent two weeks studying everyone Miss Satomi had suggested, and more. But no one had the sound Katrina remembered. It was a sound not so precise as Mullova, not so assured as Menuhin.

“Katrina?”

And yet she remembered how her teacher had played …

“Hey, Katrina?”

“W-what—Shirley?” No matter how often Shirley materialized like that, it always startled her.

“I found a recording,” Shirley said. “Please watch.”

“Ah! You found the Gitlis?” Shirley had been helping her research and locate some of the more obscure recordings.

“No, not the Gitlis,” Shirley said.

“Then who…”

Katrina’s voice trailed off as Shirley activated the projector.

For there, in front of them, stood a young Shizuka Satomi.

“What? How is this possible? Miss Satomi said there are no records of her playing in existence.”

“In your existence. But years ago, many concerts were performed on broadcast television. Those signals have been emanating from your planet at the speed of light. We’ve received and gathered Earth transmissions the entire way here. So I searched through our shipboard archives and located broadcasts of her concerts. There were quite a few of them, but I think you would like to hear this first.”

Apparently, she was in London. The picture and sound were not high definition, but she recognized the piece immediately.

Bartók.

Katrina tried to listen.

She was four and she was stomping around in the rain, and a crayfish was in the gutter on her street.

She frowned. Again, she tried to concentrate on the notes.

And then, she was sixteen and in high school, with her parents at the mall, and a guy whistled at her.

Why couldn’t she focus? Come on! Shizuka Satomi was playing in front of her, why did she keep drifting?

She was so happy that, even without a dress, someone saw her as a woman. Then, terrified, she looked at her parents, but neither had noticed.

Suddenly, Katrina stopped the recording.

Now it all made sense. What Katrina had experienced as Miss Satomi played Schradieck in the park, and later as they played Axxiom and The NetherTale. This was more than technique or brilliance. This was more than resonance, more than memory.

This was here and now and present.

Shirley shook herself awake. Had she just been navigating their starship through space?

“Katrina? What happened?”

“Miss Satomi,” Katrina muttered, “is not just playing the music of Bartók. She’s playing the music of us.”