He went on.

"Imagine their amazement and delight when they discovered that the people of Calliokeh, a double sunned, double mooned planet in Cassiopeia, had 10 fingers on their left hand, and 10 fingers on their right. Within about 50 years, they had created some of the most extraordinary fingerpicking music in the entire universe. In 2485, about 70 years ago, a Callioken guitarist named CallioPetey Jack was recorded by an earlier folk song historian doing three of the most famous songs in history: "Cosmic Train", "Callioken Blues" and "My Destarlillo Home". These were released by DisneyGolden Records, and were on the market for about a week. Then they were pulled, and the masters destroyed. And that was it -- we had nothing more from Callioken. "

"So," Boukey said, "Sharazade and I set out for Callioken to see if we might find any descendants of CallioPetey Jack."

The Elder rose, and went over to the wall, and pulled out an old nanorecorder. He turned. "We do have some technology here, for really useful purposes. Like playing CallioPetey Jack. Tern has, thanks to a Terran of my acquaintance" -- he looked over at his son, who smiled for the first time in a long time -- "one of the only recordings of "Callioken Blues'" in the cosmos.

He started the machine. Nothing happened. "Oh," said the Elder, "forgot to plug it in." He plugged it in, and started the machine again.