Alien Love in the Age of Platypus

Men, women, cyborgs, androids, and one hyper-intelligent beluga. Yanni G has loved and been loved by them all. Yet neither Yanni G, nor any man before him, has ever known the love of a Platypus.

"Third person. Narcissist." So says Bartholomew, the raven perched upon Yanni G's… my left shoulder.

Yes, it is Yanni G, Saturn's only three-time Grammy winner, who writes this. Music is my voice and love my sustenance, yet now I find myself mute, starved, humbled before the Platypus. Rest assured, I don't mean the duck-billed, egg-laying, mammalian curiosity known to frequent Earth's Australia. I suppose I must say so for present ignorance and future posterity.

"Future posterity? Redundant," croaks my silver-beaked raven, too clever by far. "Stop. No need write my words. Not relevant."

"Silence, critic! I shall create and compose and forego end quotes that would separate my innermost soul from the page; I shall abandon any convention that would constrain my yearning for Lady Oman by whose sufferance we exist on Mimas.

Bartholomew stares at me sideways with his black raven's eye. The complete works of French composer Maurice Ravel are micro etched into his silver beak. He clacks that magnificent beak once then holds his silence to create space for the beyond magnificent—not for Yanni G, but for the goddess who inhabits Mimas's inner ocean.

Yes, it's almost time. Lady Oman will emerge at dusk then return to her inner world of pleasure at dawn. I've had my humble castle constructed on Herschel crater's central peak, as close above her subterranean entrance as the Federation androids will allow. But closeness means next to nothing. How I ache to know her depths.

This Platypus has five genders within the realm of human understanding, but prefers the title of Lady, so I think of her as such. While most of the 19 known Platypuses are otherwise engaged in Jupiter's Great Red Spot, Lady Oman waits here on Saturn's moon Mimas. I hope beyond hope that I am the one for whom she waits.

I stifle a sob as dusk falls. No matter that my peak rises 6 kilometers above the lunar crater floor, for parts of Herschel are more than 10 km deep, meaning there are never enough hours of light within Mima's 22.6 hour day to suit my condition. I'm caught on a spire within a hole and get roughly 7 hours of sun if I'm fortunate. But Yanni G. will hang on, as he always does, to witness the Platypus's emergence.

From my veranda, I watch the rock-strewn ice plateau below as the android attendants line up along both sides of Lady Oman's entrance. They are but pitiful guardians, the Federation's illusion of control. Witness how they take a collective step back as the orifice under their watchful gaze shimmers pink then gives birth to undulating light. The Platypus emerges!

More charged particles from the twilight sun caress Lady Oman, causing a ripple of ionization and excitation across her exquisitely sensitive magnetosphere as she reveals herself beneath my naked eye. Even though we've seen her hundreds of times, I gasp and Bartholomew squawks as she glides across Mimas's icy surface, a curved aurora floating free.

I have chosen the harpsichord today to mark her passage: Scarlatti's Sonata in D minor, K. 517 to be exact. I force my fingers to flutter madly over the keys even as I feel myself growing sluggish in the fading light. Lady Oman, meanwhile, gathers speed. She comes alive as the sun drops below the crater wall's horizon.

She also loses all but a faint pink glow, revealing her true form. To Yanni G, she looks like impregnated infinity adorned with four grasping hands, but the first explorers to discover her kind lacked poetry: they said platypus.

Once those same discoverers realized the power of these ancient beings, they were too afraid to explain their initial jest that bordered on insult. Thus, the Platypus name stuck, and grew noble in the sticking.

My Lady Oman vanishes from view, soaring through the night to inspect her Herschel crater, misnamed for an 18th-century astronomer because the Platypus herself created this 130 kilometer–wide crater billions of years ago. Yes, she almost blew this moon apart in her throes of ecstasy, and Yanni G wants to know what that feels like.

Alas, as true night falls, my malaise hits, courtesy of a nanovirus designed solely for me by a jilted lover—a non-communicable disease that twists my metabolism and keeps me bound to day, the idea being that I'd never enjoy another late night love affair.

I shall see you at dawn, my dear.

Bartholomew flies off to God knows where, and it's all I can do to crawl into the UV lights that illuminate my inner sanctum. The lights help to keep my mind moving at half speed, but they're no replacement for the sun. Still, I know the 15 hours of Mimas night that once seemed so long will be but a breath before this coming dawn.

There is not much left to prepare, but the terror of anticipation will keep me awake, so I inspect my wardrobe for dawn to keep my doubts at bay:

A tasteful black half-cape, lightly sequined to complement the dawn's early light reflected in Yanni G's flowing mane.

A jabot whose pleated frills achieve perfect symmetry with Yanni G's proud moustache.

A white paisley suit, woven from smart fabric that knows all Yanni G's imperfections and how to reshape them to his advantage.

And the pièce de résistance: A single earring made of amber that encases a 130-million-year-old fossil, the Montsechia vidalii, Earth's first flower.

That is all because Yanni G does not believe in shoes.

Dull-witted in the dead of night, it takes me an hour to put on everything. I use the mirrored wall to check my reflection for flaws: None exist.

I carefully take off and put away each item, then I make the mistake of turning back toward the mirror. I look away quickly, but not before I catch a glimpse.

A pale primate past his prime.

The same might be said of my music.

No one would ever guess it, but Yanni G is washed up. He hasn't written an original song in years.

Except one.

The song of coming dawn.

The song of unimaginable love.

The song with which I will serenade Lady Oman.

It will be the most important performance of my life because love is a battlefield—and I don't mean the gentle wreckage of tossed bouquets, crumpled tissues, and tear-stained letters.

Love is cataclysmic war among the Platypuses.

Lady Oman didn't create Herschel crater on her own. There was at least one other Platypus. She and her lover likely tussled for centuries, if not eons, before reaching climax. The crater and chasmata on Mimas still stand as a testament that their love ran deep.

And where is Lady Oman's fabled lover today? He/she/they are contained within her. Platypuses do not make love to multiply. They do it to fuse, to become something greater than the sum of their parts. These beings are proof that truly losing yourself to another is beyond powerful.

For a present example, look no farther than Jupiter's Great Red Spot, a hurricane that could swallow the Earth whole. The Platypuses there have been going at it for centuries. However, I suspect it's still foreplay at this point; Jupiter's a gas giant with no solid surface, so the Platypuses likely don't have to try too hard to stir up a tempest as they gently explore each other in that low-friction environment.

Some fringe scholars have even suggested that Earth's dinosaurs were wiped out by an irresponsible three-way rather than an asteroid, but the Platypuses, usually quite candid when they choose to communicate, have remained silent on that subject.

But I digress. My point is that tomorrow will be a battle I must lose. If my song of the coming dawn wins Lady Oman's favor, then I will leave this old life behind.

How long will I last before giving myself completely to her? An hour? A day? I am no Platypus, but I hope to last at least a year, caught within pleasure beyond pleasure before becoming something more.

So, do not weep for Yanni G. He wishes to be annihilated and reborn through true love.

I must dream of her electric embrace because Saturn's rings in the sky have lost some of their lustre as the first rays of sun threaten to overtake them. The nanovirus in my blood has subsided, which means dawn is moments away.

I throw on my suit, jabot, and half-cape... but my prized Montsechia vidalii amber earring is gone!

Do not try to comprehend the moment of panic that strikes Yanni G. He considers waiting for the next dawn, but he knows in his heart of hearts that if he doesn't go on now, he will never find the courage again.

Yes, earring be damned. I, Yanni G, must move like the wind. I run to the veranda where my silver shell awaits. I climb atop the shell and activate a series of gentle jets along its bottom to take it aloft. Past the railing, I turn off the jets to begin my drop in low gravity.

As the Federation androids awaiting Lady Oman's return drift up to intercept me, I turn on the more powerful jets along the shell's top to hasten my descent. The first wave of guards collide above me as more join in the pursuit, but they can't stay in time with my wild changing tempo of up-down jets.

I speed downward then reverse course at the last moment for a gentle landing in the very spot where no android will dare go.

My shell settles on the ice right in front of Lady Oman's entrance.

I step off my shell so that it can unfold to reveal my stage. The pink glow of the Platypus speeding towards her runway illuminates me as androids along the periphery shout and bark out commands. I ignore their synthesized voices playing at emotion as I unpack my instruments.

"Crazy. Bad idea. Will die." Somehow, my raven Bartholomew has found his way back to my left shoulder.

"Then fly away, my friend. I leave you my castle."

But Bartholomew does not flee, and Yanni G sheds a single tear for his erstwhile friend before the Platypus is upon them.

The air crackles and I nearly faint from the thrill of being so close to her pulsing pink radiance.

Then, I remember to lift my half-cape and bow.

"Hello. My name is Yanni G, and this song is for you."

I gaze into eternity for a second, then the sun peeks over the crater wall and her resulting radiance blinds me to her true form.

"Then play." Lady Oman's voice comes as a tickling whisper that sears my soul.

My song of the coming dawn rivals the rising sun.

It begins slowly with a glass armonica whose graduated goblets are specially tuned for fingers wetted with low-viscosity honey. I play until the Platypus glows a brighter shade of pink, then having imbued the glass armonica with a sense of Yanni G, I let the instrument's built-in AI take it on a progressive loop.

I flick the honey from my fingers at Lady Oman ever so playfully as I move to the electric organ.

Work hands. Shrug off the remnants of night. Music is my voice and love my sustenance. Yes, resonate, resonate! I blast the Platypus with a jolt of funk to show her I mean business.

She sways as the ice about her fractures with excitement.

While the glass armonica spins and the electric organ grooves on under its own accord, I shake out my hair and throw her a wink before reaching for the final instrument that will make or break Yanni G: The soprano saxophone.

The act of losing yourself to another cannot be rehearsed. The armonica and organ have set the stage for the song of unimaginable love, but we're now in uncharted territory.

There is no plan, only liquid jazz.

There is no truth beyond the moment, and I'm in that moment of truth as the sun clears the crater wall.

That's when I hit high F.

Lady Oman shudders and several nearby androids' heads explode.

But Yanni G is nothing if not a professional. He holds his F and plays it true.

The Platypus grows blindingly bright, the glass armonica shatters, the electric organ short circuits, and the remaining androids blow their tops like a salvo of cannons.

Only then do I take my final bow.

Lady Oman dims her neon glow then gently drifts closer to the stage, suffusing me with a warmth beyond my understanding.

One of the hands that adorns infinity reaches for me.

I hold out my left hand.

But she reaches past it.

That's when Bartholomew hops off my shoulder and onto his new perch.

His Ravel-inscribed raven's beak flashes as the Platypus draws him near. Bartholomew raises one of his wings.

A farewell? No, a taunt.

For dangling from that wing is my glorious Montsechia vidalii amber earring.

Silver-beaked betrayer!

Then, they are past me, vanished from view down Lady Oman's tunnel to cruise Mimas's inner ocean, to embark on a journey of more boundless love than Yanni G, or any man after him, will ever know.

I have waited for two dawns and three dusks, but the Platypus has not re-emerged.

All the while, Mimas rumbles.

I must leave soon, and I do not know where I'll go as the Federation won't be happy about their androids.

So, how then do I explain the fiendish joy that gives me new life as I recount these events on the page?

I wonder what Lady Oman and Bartholomew will become once they have lost themselves to one another, but I hope they don't take too long to do so.

That's because the song of the coming dawn was only the beginning. It will pale in comparison to the new song taking shape in my heart.

It's not fully formed yet, but I know it begins with soft percussion like a feathered gauntlet and must include a squawk of horns.

It will be a song that humbles even the proudest Platypus and lives on long after I'm gone.

Because maybe what Yanni G needed all along was not a new lover, but a worthy rival.