Kari Tanskanen

                DESTINATION NOT UNKNOWN



     Eliah Cochlea woke up. A bright, blinding light showered 
on the astronaut's hypersensitive retinae. He was alive. 
'Strange,' Eliah heard himself say, 'can't hear a thing!'
     He fixed his eyes towards the source of the light. That 
was the sun - but where was the earth?

			***
     Arat Askenski was working busily but his thoughts were 
elsewhere. 'How would it feel to be deaf?' he wondered 
silently. The computer waited patiently for his command. 
     And it came.

			***
     He ran for his only life.
     Away from THEM. 
     What were they called? `Cats?. But they were no 
ordinary, cuddly  pussies that ate their Feline nicely and 
were the sunshines of home. They were big, intelligent and 
bloodthirsty predators. The unfortunate results of some 
idiotic, genetical-biological human/cat experiments. Now THEY 
were running free on the whole continent, reproducing fast. 
Too fast:
     He reached the edge of a primeval forest. There were no 
sounds. He tried to strain his ears - still nothing. He stood 
still. Air wheezed in his lungs, they were saturated with 
tar, smoking can endanger your health. Bullshit. THEY can 
endanger your health. There was a deep, confusing silence. He 
sat down on a stump of a tree. Looked around and listened. He 
heard buzzing. Whining. Flying, bloodthirsty insects gathered 
around the sweaty runaway but it did not bother him. They had 
lost him - at least for a while.


     Eliah was drifting quietly in space. The stupid safety 
cable had broken, thank goodness nothing else.
     His space suit was functioning normally, and as usual, 
he could think clearly. Eliah grinned broadly, seeing the 
ridiculous absurdity of the situation.
     ELO's 'Last Train To London' started to roll as Eliah 
switched on the audioplayer of his space suit. It works! The 
train must have gone by now, though. A fast, jogging piece, 
it was part of Jeff Lynne's miscellaneous production of '79. 
In this model of space suit - shame what a shame - there is 
no connection for a Walkman video. It was nice, though, that 
he had happened to take at least one audiorecording with him 
to the routine mission of repairing the solar panel.
     'Telephone Line.' Who was there to call? Do you read me, 
Houston?

			***
     'START: EAR/ HEARING.'
     The sound wave enters the outer ear and moves via 
tympanic membrane through the middle ear. Eustachian tubes 
ensure that the air pressure is equal on both sides of the 
eardrum. Finally the vibration of the tympanic membrane is 
transmitted to the inner ear by the teamwork of three very 
delicate bones - the hammer, the anvil and the stirrup.
     In the inner ear the vibration passes through the 
membrane of the so-called oval window. Because this membrane 
is much smaller than the eardrum, it increases sound. Inside 
the inner ear is a complex labyrinth of thin membranous 
tubes, where exists the actual hearing system including the 
Cort's organ and the cochlea with fluidous canals.
     The vibration of the oval window spreads into the fluid, 
pressing the Cort's organ and activating the sensitive hairs 
of the hair cells. Thus the message of sound is delivered 
into the parietal lobe of the brain. The Cort's organ 
discerns volume and frequencies from 20 to 20000 per second.      

			***
     He was tired. He had been fleeing already for over nine 
hours and almost all the time on foot. Those devils of human 
cats. Human size, but with feline senses excellent for 
hunting and awesome claws. The earlobes were at least five 
times bigger than those of a normal human being. This partly 
explained their scary, terrifying and ghostlike ability to 
catch prey. And humans were their prey. No more Kitekat or 
other cats' gourmet fast food delicacies. It had to be raw, 
fresh and bloody human flesh.
     Darkness was descending on the forest. Evening was 
turning into night. A wolf howled just once somewhere in the 
distance. He woke up from his sleep. It was a cool night. He 
was beginning to feel cold and he was hungry too. Although it 
was better to be hungry than get eaten. Philosophical sarcasm 
did not fill his stomach much.
     Mewr.
     A cat?
     M e w r.
     No, it was just the stomach rumbling.
     Should one venture to fall asleep?
     Let's take the risk.


     'Turn To Stone.' Eliah gave a laugh - forcedly. 
Meteorites, he had watched them all his damned working life; 
and along comes a one and breaks the safety cable. It was 
like cutting spaghetti with a knife. 'Shine A Little Love.' 
Shine, radiance! Eliah felt like laughing hysterically. ELO 
goes to disco! Why did Jeff Lynne compose this shit? To keep 
the contract with the producer? Can't think of any other 
reason. Hungry:
     'Mr. Blue Sky.' I have seen multicolored skies and 
experienced incredible, heavenly moments in the arms of my 
supersensual wife. Nevermore am I to explore her secret 
garden with my 99 years old probe. Snif.
     'Mr. Radio.' The innovative sound of ELO's early days. I 
love it! Goddam! The accumulator has no more power for the 
radio. Radio, my dear radio! Why didn't I see it at once! I'm 
becoming senile, wants a late retirement!


     Morning. He woke up after a restless night's sleep. As 
usual, he remembered nothing of his dreams, which was 
probably just good in the situation at hand. T h e y gave you 
just enough shivers even when you were awake. They were cats, 
in case someone had happened to forget. He hadn't. It was 
strange, but he hadn't.
     The forest seemed very pleasant now in the early 
morning. The birds were twittering their singsongs, the 
grasshoppers tuning their violins - practising Dvorak's 
violin concerto? It sounded great. He rose from the moss 
tussock, stood up and stretched his stiffened limbs. Suddenly 
he heard a loud miaow.
     It was close. Very close. Terrifyingly close. He lost 
the control of his bladder. Remembered still to take cover. 
How many are there? Usually they move and hunt alone. 
Sometimes they use to gang up, it is a human oddity. He 
started to crawl. Slowly, meter by meter, he crept towards 
the shelter.
     Shelter? What shelter? He was trapped! He raised his 
bald head. MIAOW!


     'Showdown.' ELO-hit from seventyandsomething. Jeff Lynne 
had been in the prime of his creativity: his melody pen had 
written masterpices in a steady stream. Once again Eliah 
cursed his bad luck. Why did I happen to go on a shuttle 
flight alone? Did I think I was somekind of a superman? You 
usually have to pay for your mistakes! But you should get a 
shot against them!
     'One Summer Dream.' There are no seasons in space. In 
the vacuum of space you cannot enjoy the chirping of a finch, 
not one beautiful sound. In space the auditory sense is 
useless - unless you happen to be inside a space suit like 
Eliah Cochlea. And the only source of joy was ELO's 
audiotape. 'So Serious.'

			***
     Arat Askenski speculated on the problematics of hearing 
during his well earned time off duty. It is not good to hear 
everything, on the other hand the human audio frequency is 
very limited. It would be interesting to be able to control 
one's hearing totally according to free will. If one would 
sketch a flowchart of the control of unlimited hearing:

			***
     It looked at him straight in the ears. He realised his 
moment had come. The human-cat creature miaowed once and hit 
him uncoscious with its front paw. Another mongrel shot out, 
partly running. The creatures grabbed his ears with their 
paws. They glanced at each other. They were smiling. They had 
succeeded - again.
     He saw them when he came to. He did not hear anything. 
Where his ears had been were only two bloody, gaping holes. 
Part of the skull was grotesquely visible. He cried of pain 
and lost consciousness again.
     They had lost interest in him. Nothing was as good as 
ears. Besides they tasted sweet. The creatures rose to their 
hairy feet and jogged away slowly.


     'Hold On Tight.' Eliah was looking at the earth. It 
glimmered beautifully, seemingly below him. There was no 
reason to hold on to the safety cable. You could hold on only 
to memories now. They varied from elevating to repulsive.
     The ELO-audiorecording started to sound out of tune. The 
accumulator was obviously running out of power. Eliah was 
well aware that a space suit is programmed in such a way that 
it maintains vital functions as long as possible. Audioplayer 
was not considered vital. Too bad. He would have to complain 
to the manufacturer.
     'No Way Out.' Lynne's leftover from the eighties, not 
good enough for any album. A lousy piece.
     Eliah Cochlea was tired. The day had been very unlucky. 
He glanced towards the sun. It was shining with blinding 
light and would still continue to do so for many billions of 
years to come. The destination of the earth was also known, 
in due time it would burn to ashes. After all, Jeff Lynne, 
the brilliant top figure of the ELO-band had made a mistake: 
'Destination Unknown.'
     'Mama:'