Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  With a snort, Killashandra marched down the hall, almost to its end, before she indicated to Rimbol and Shillawn which room she intended to take. She saw them move for the rooms on either side of her. She pressed her thumb into the plate, felt the vibration as the print was recorded, and then entered the room, the door panel sliding soundlessly behind her.

  “This facility has been programmed to responded to any change in your life signals,” announced a pleasant voice, rather more human than mechanical. “You may program the catering units and audiovisual units and change any furnishing not to your liking.”

  “My liking is for privacy,” Killashandra said.

  “Programmed,” the voice dispassionately replied. “Should your physical health alter on the monitors, you will be informed.”

  “I’ll probably inform you,” Killashandra muttered under her breath, and was pleased to hear no reply. Just as well, she thought. She tossed her carisak to the bed. Some people preferred to have a voice responding to their idle remarks: she preferred the sanctity of quiet.

  Her quarters were as good as the guest facility in the Shankill Base, nothing gaudy but certainly substantial: bed, table, chairs, writing surface, tri-d screen, the customary audiovisual terminals, a catering slot convenient to the table, a storage closet. The hygienic unit was larger than expected, and it included a deep bath. She flipped on the small fax dispenser and watched as all varieties of bathing lotions, salts, fragrances, and oils were named as available.

  More than pleased, Killashandra dialed for a foaming fragrant bath, at 35º C, and the tub obediently began to fill itself.

  You never feel completely clean, Killashandra thought as she undressed, using the spray cabinets on ship and station. You really needed to soak in the hot water of a full immersion bath.

  She was drying off in warm air jets when Tukolom announced it was his pleasure to meet Class 895 in the lounge for the evening meal.

  Tukolom’s curious syntax appeared to function only in spontaneous remarks. It was totally absent from the flood of information he imparted to them during that meal. He also refused to be deflected from his set passages by questions or to be diverted by Carigana when she anticipated his points.

  Since it was obvious to everyone except Carigana that it was useless to interrupt Tukolom and since the food presented a variety of hot and cold dishes, protein, vegetable and fruit, the Class 895 listened and ate.

  Tukolom discoursed first on the sequence of events to befall them. He stated the symptoms common to the onset of the symbiotic illness, occurring between ten and thirty days after exposure, beginning with headache, general muscular soreness, irritability, blurred vision, and impaired hearing. Such symptoms were to be reported to him immediately and the person afflicted to return to the room assigned, where the progress of the adaptation could be monitored. Any discomfort would be alleviated without affecting the course of the symbiotic intrusion.

  “When rape is inevitable, huh?” whispered the irrepressible Rimbol in Killashandra’s ear.

  Meanwhile, Class 895 would have orientation courses on the history and geography of Ballybran, instruction in the piloting of ground-effects craft, meteorology lectures, and survival techniques. The class would also be requested to perform duties within the Guild relevant to the preservation of cut crystal and restoration of facilities after any storm. Normal work hours and days were in effect, which would allow ample time for recreation. Members were encouraged to continue any hobbies or avocations that they had previously enjoyed. Once members had been cleared for use of surface vehicles, they might take whatever trips they wished as long as they filed and had had approved a flight plan with control center. Special clearance and a proficiency test were required for the use of water vessels. As abruptly as he had started his lecture, Tukolom concluded. He looked expectantly around.

  “Is this the main Guild installation?” Carigana asked, caught by surprise at the opening.

  “The main training area, yes, this is. Situated on the largest continental mass which bears the largest of the productive crystal ranges, Milekey and Brerrerton. The facility is located on the Joslin plateau, sheltered by the Mansord upthrust on the north, the Joslin discontinuity on the south, to the west by the White Sea and the east by the Long Plain. Thus, the installation is generally sheltered from the worst of the mach storms by its felicitous situation.”

  Tukolom had perfect recall, Killashandra decided: a walking data retrieval unit. Rimbol must have reached a similar conclusion, for as her eyes slid past his, she saw amusement twinkling. Shillawn, however, continued to look impressed by the man’s encyclopedic manner.

  “How many other settlements are there?” Borton asked.

  “Learning tomorrow’s lesson today a good idea is not,” Tukolom pronounced solemnly. He then neatly avoided further questions by leaving the lounge.

  “Aurigans are impossible,” Carigana announced, frowning blackly at the departing figure. “Always dogmatic, authoritarian. Could they find no one else suitable as a mentor?”

  “He’s perfect,” Rimbol replied, cocking his head as he regarded Carigana. “He’s got total recall. What more could you ask of a teacher?”

  “I wonder . . .” began Shillawn, stammering slightly, “If he had it before he . . . got here.”

  “Didn’t you hear that Borella woman?” demanded Carigana. “Most handicaps are sensory . . .”

  “At least his syntax improves when he recalls.”

  “Every other human species in the galaxy, and some not so human,” Carigana continued undeterred, “can manage interlingual except the Aurigan group. It’s a delusion on their part. Anyone can learn interlingual properly.” She was swinging one leg violently; all the while the corners of her mouth twitched with irritation, and her eyes blinked continually.

  “Where are you from?” Rimbol asked guilelessly.

  “Privacy.” She snapped the qualification curtly.

  “As you will, citizen,” Rimbol replied, and turned his back on her.

  That was also an insult but not an invasion of Privacy, so Carigana had to be content with glaring about her. Class 895 averted its eyes, and with a noise of disgust, Carigana took her leave. The space worker had had a dampening effect on the entire group because suddenly everyone began to talk. It was Rimbol who dialed the first drink, letting out a whoop.

  “They’ve got Yarran beer! Hey, come try a real drink!” He exhorted all to join him and before long had everyone served, if not with the Yarran beer he touted, at least with some mild intoxicant. “We may never get off this planet again,” he said to Killashandra as he joined her, “but they sure make it comfortably homelike.”

  “A restriction is only restricting because you know it exists,” Killashandra said. “ ‘Nor iron bars a prison make’,” she added, dredging up an old quote unexpectedly.

  “Prison? That’s archaic,” said Rimbol with a snort. “Tonight let’s enjoy!”

  Rimbol’s exuberance was hard to resist, and Killashandra didn’t care to. She wanted to abandon her skeptical mood, as much because she didn’t want to echo Carigana as to purge her mind of its depressions. There had been some small truth in the space worker’s complaints, but blunt though Killashandra knew herself to be, even she could have made points more tactfully. Of course, the girl was probably on a psych-twist, from what Rimbol had learned of her. How had she passed that part of the Guild preliminary exams? More importantly, if Carigana was so contemptuous of the Guild, why had she applied for admission?

  Conversations swirled pleasantly all around her, and she began to listen. The recruits came from varied backgrounds and training disciplines, but each and every one of them, geared to succeed in highly skilled work, had been denied their goals at the last moment. Was it not highly coincidental that all of them had hit upon the Heptite Guild as an alternative career?

  Killashandra found that conclusion invalid. There were hundreds of human planets, moon bases, and space facilities offering alternative employm
ent to everyone, that is, except herself and Rimbol. In fact, the two musicians could probably have taken on temporary assignments in their original fields. A second objection was that, thirty-three people were an infinitesimal factor among the vast multitudes who might not have jobs waiting for them in their immediate vicinities. Colonial quotas were always absorbing specialists, and one could always work a ship one-way to get to a better employment market. She found the reflections a trifle unsettling, yet how could such a subtle recruitment be accomplished? Certainly no probability curve could have anticipated her crossing Carrik’s path in the Fuertan space port. His decision had been whimsical, and there could have been no way of knowing that her aimless wandering would take her to the space port. No, the coincidence factor was just too enormous.

  She sat for a few moments longer, finishing the Yarran beer that Rimbol had talked her into trying. He was telling some involved joke to half a dozen listeners. By no means as shy with drink in him and lacking his stammer, Shillawn was talking earnestly to one of the girls. Jezerey was half asleep, though trying to keep her eyes open as Borton argued some point with the oldest recruit, a swarthy faced man from Amodeus VII. He had his second mate’s deep space ticket as well as radiology qualifications. Maybe the Guild needed another shuttle pilot more than they needed crystal miners

  Killashandra wished she could gracefully retire. She did not intend making the same mistakes with this group that she had in the Music Center. Carigana had already provoked dislike by her unacceptable behavior, so Killashandra had a prime example she was not going to emulate. Then she caught Jezerey’s eyes as the girl yawned broadly. Killashandra grinned and jerked her head in the direction of the rooms.

  “You can talk all night if you want to,” the girl said, rising, “but I’m going to bed, and so is Killashandra. See you in the morning.” Then she added as the two reached the corridor, “Shards, was I glad of an excuse. G’night.”

  Killashandra repeated the salute and, once in her room, gratefully gave the verbal order to secure her privacy until morning.

  A curious glow at the window attracted her attention, and she darkened the room light that had come on at her entrance. She caught her breath then at the sight of the two moons: golden Shankill, large and appearing far nearer than it actually was; just above it, hanging as if from a different radius altogether, the tiny, faintly green luminescence of Shilmore, the innermost and smallest moon. She was accustomed to night skies with several satellites, but somehow these were unusual. Though Killashandra had never been off Fuerte before she met Carrik, she had had every intention of traveling extensively throughout the galaxy, as a performing soloist of any rank would have done. Perhaps it was because she might be seeing only these moons for the rest of her life that they now had a special radiance for her. She sat on the edge of her bed, watching their graceful ascent until Shilmore had outrun her larger companion and disappeared beyond Killashandra’s view.

  Then she went to bed and slept.

  The next morning, she and the other recruits learned the organization of the Guild Complex and were obliquely informed that the higher the level, the lower the status. They were introduced rapidly to the geology of Ballybran and made a beginning with its complex meteorology.

  Trouble started about midafternoon as the students were viewing the details of the Charter of the Heptite Guild as a diversion after meta-maths. Rimbol muttered that the Guild was damned autocratic for a member of the Federated Planets. Shillawn, swallowing first, mumbled about data retrieval and briefing.

  It took a few moments before the import of the section dealing with tithes, fee, and charges was fully understood. With a growing sense of indignation, Killashandra learned that from the moment she had been sworn in at the moon base as a recruit, the Guild could charge her for any and all services rendered, including a fee of transfer from the satellite to the planet.

  “Do they charge, too, for the damn spores in the air we’re breathing?” Carigana demanded, characteristically the first to find voice after the initial shock. For once, she had the total support of the others. With a fine display of vituperation, she vented her anger on Tukolom, the visible representative of the Guild that she vehemently declared had exploited the unsuspecting.

  “Told you were,” Tukolom replied, unexpectedly raising his voice to top hers. “Available to you was that data at Shankill. The charter in the data is.”

  “How would we have known to ask?” Carigana retorted, her anger fueled by his answer. “This narding Guild keeps its secrets so well, you’re not led to expect a straight answer to a direct question!”

  “Thinking surely you would,” Tukolom said, unruffled and with an irony that surprised Killashandra. “Maintenance charges only at cost are—”

  “No where else in the galaxy do students have to pay for subsistence—”

  “Students you are not.” Tukolom was firm. “Guild members are you!”

  Not even Carigana could find a quick answer to that. She glared around her, her flashing eyes begging someone to have a rejoinder.

  “Trapped us, haven’t you?” She spat the words at the man. “Good and truly trapped. And we walked so obligingly into it.” She flung herself down on the seating unit, her hands flopping uselessly about her thighs.

  “Once trained, salary far above galactic average,” Tukolom announced diplomatically into the silence. “Most indebtedness cleared by second year. Then—every wish satisfy. Order any thing from any place in galaxy.” He tendered a thin smile of encouragement. “Guild credit good anywhere for anything.”

  “That’s not much consolation for being stuck on this planet for the rest of your life,” Carigana replied with a snarl.

  Once she had absorbed the initial shock, Killashandra was willing to admit that the Guild method was fair. Its members must be furnished with private quarters, food, clothing, personal necessities, and medical care. Some of the specialists, the Singers especially, had a further initial outlay for equipment. The cost of the flitter craft used by Crystal Singers in the ranges was staggering, the sonic cutting gear that had to be tuned to the user was also expensive and a variety of other items whose purpose was not yet known to her were basic Singer’s tools.

  Obviously, the best job to have on Ballybran was that of a Crystal Singer even if the Guild did “tithe” 30 percent of the crystal cut and brought in. She duly noted the phrase, brought in, and wondered if she could find a vocabulary section in the data bank that would define words in precisely the nuance meant on Ballybran. Interlingual was accurate enough, but every profession has terms that sound familiar, seem innocuous, and are dangerous to the incompletely initiated.

  A wide variety of supporting skills put the Singers into the ranges, maintained the vehicles, buildings, space station, research, medical facilities, and the administration of it all. Twenty thousand technicians, essential to keep the four thousand or so Singers working, and this very elite group was somehow recruited from the galaxy.

  The argument over entrapment, as Carigana vehemently insisted on calling it, continued long after Tukolom left. Killashandra noticed him as he gradually worked his way from the center of the explosion, almost encouraging Carigana to become the focus, then adroitly slipped down a corridor. He’s pulled the fade-away act before, Killashandra thought. Perversely, she then became annoyed because she and her group were reacting predictably; it was one thing to have a stage director prescribe your moves on stage, quite another to be manipulated in one’s living. She had thought to be free of overt management, so she experienced a surge of anger. To rant as Carigana was doing solved nothing except the immediate release of an energy and purpose that could be used to better advantage.

  Ignoring Carigana’s continuing harangue, Killashandra quietly moved to a small terminal and asked for a review of the Charter. After a few moment’s study, she left the machine. There was no legal way in which one could relinquish membership in the Heptite Guild except by dying. Even in sickness, mental or physical, the Guild
had complete protective authority over every member so sworn, averred, and affirmed. Now she appreciated the FSP officials and the elaborate rigmarole. On the other hand, she had been told; she could have withdrawn after full disclosure if she hadn’t been so eager to flaunt Maestro Valdi and prove to Andurs that she’d be right as a Crystal Singer. The section on the Guild’s responsibilities to the individual member was clear. Killashandra could see definite advantages, including the ones that had lured her to Ballybran. If she became a Crystal Singer . . . She preferred “Singer” to the Guild’s dull job description, “Cutter.”

  “Ever the optimist, Killa?” Rimbol asked. He must have been standing behind her a while.

  “Well, I prefer that role to hers.” She inclined her head sharply in Carigana’s direction. “She’s beating her gums over ways to break a contract that we were warned was irrevocable.”

  “D’you suppose they count on our being obstinate by nature?”

  “Obviously, they have psychologists among the membership.” Killashandra laughed. “You want what you can’t or shouldn’t have or are denied. Human nature.”

  “Will we still be human after symbiosis?” Rimbol wondered aloud, cocking his head to one side, his eyes narrow with speculation.

  “I can’t say as I’d like Borella for an intimate friend,” Killashandra began.

  “Nor I.” Rimbol’s laugh was infectious.

  “I did hear her come out with a very human, snide comment on the shuttle.”

  “About us?”

  “In general. But I liked Carrik. He knew how to enjoy things, even silly things, and—”

  Rimbol touched her arm, and the glint of his blue eyes reminded her of the look in Carrik’s when they’d first met.

  “Comparisons are invidious but . . . join me?”

  Killashandra gave him a longer, speculative look. His gaiety and ingenuous appearance, his gregariousness, were carefully cultivated to counterbalance his unusual coloring.