Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  The expression on his face, the warmth of his eyes and smile, and the gentle stroking of his hand on her arm effected a distinct change in her attitude toward him.

  “Guaranteed Privacy between members of equal rank.” His voice was teasing and she had no desire to resist his temptation.

  With Carigana’s strident voice in their ears, they slipped down the corridor to her room and enjoyed complete Privacy.

  The next morning Tukolom marshaled Class 895, some of whom were decidedly the worse for a night’s drinking.

  “Borton, Jezerey, also Falanog, qualified are you already on surface and shuttle craft. To take your pilot cards to Flight Control on first level. Follow gray strip down, turn right twice, Guild Member Danin see. All others of this class with me are coming.”

  Tukolom led without turning to discover if he was being followed, but the class, sullen or just resigned, obeyed. Shillawn stepped in behind Killashandra and Rimbol.

  “I figured it out,” he said with his characteristic gulp. His anxiety to please was so intense that Killashandra asked him what had he figured out. “How much it will all cost until we start earning credits. And . . . and what the lowest credit rating is. It’s not too bad, really. Guild charges at cost and doesn’t add a tariff for transport or special orders.”

  “Having done us to get us here, they’re not out to do us further, huh?”

  “Well”—and Shillawn had to shuffle awkwardly to keep a position where his words would be audible only to Rimbol and Killashandra—“it is fair.”

  Rimbol shrugged. “So, what is the lowest Guild wage? And how long will it take to pay off what we’re racking up just by breathing?”

  “Well”—Shillawn held up his jotter—“the lowest wage is for a caterer’s assistant and that brings in three thousand five hundred credits plus Class three accommodations, clothing allowance and two hundred luxury units per standard year. We’re charged at the base-level accommodations, shuttle passage was only fifteen cr, but any unusual item from catering—except two beakers of beverages up to Grade four—is charged against the individual’s account. So, if you don’t eat exotic, or drink heavy, you’d clear off the initial levies at a c.a.’s pay in”— Shillawn had to skip after them as he glanced down at his jotter and lost his stride—“in seven months, two weeks and five days’ standard.”

  Rimbol caught Killashandra’s eye, and she could see that the young Yarran was hard put to suppress his laughter.

  “Why did you only consider the lowest-paid member, Shillawn?” she asked, managing to keep her voice level.

  “Well, that was practical.”

  “You mean, you didn’t compute any of the higher grades?”

  “The highest-paid position is that of the Guild Master, and such information is not available.”

  “You did try?” Now it was Killashandra’s turn to have to skip ahead or be overrun by Shillawn’s long legs.

  “I wanted to see just what areas are open to the average member . . .”

  “How high could you retrieve data?”

  “That’s the good part,” Shillawn beamed down at them. “The next rank after Guild Master is Crystal Cutter—Singer, I mean. Only the credit varies too erratically, depending as it does on how much usable crystal a Cutter brings in.”

  “If Crystal Singers are second, who’s third in rank?”

  “Chief of Research, Chief of Control, and Chief of Marketing. All on equal rating.”

  “Credit per year?”

  “Their base pay is 300,000 pgy, plus living, entertainment, travel, and personal allowances ‘to be determined’.”

  The base figure was sufficient to draw an appreciative whistle from Rimbol.

  “And, of course, you’re going to be Chief of Control, I expect,” a new voice said and the three friends realized that Carigana had been listening.

  Shillawn flushed at her sarcasm.

  “And you’ll be chief rant-and-raver,” Rimbol said, unexpectedly acerbic, his blue eyes signaling dislike.

  Carigana flipped her thumbnail at him and strode on, head high, shoulders and back stiffly straight.

  “Any sympathy I had for that woman is fast giving place to total antipathy,” Rimbol said, making an even more insulting gesture at the space worker’s back.

  With her head start on the rest of Class 895, Carigana was first to reach the ground-craft depot, but she had to wait until the flight officer checked in all thirty. They were taken to a large section inside a gigantic hangar that housed three vehicles on simulation stands: a skimmer, the general workcraft, which could be adapted for variations of atmosphere and gravity and could be driven by children. A single bar controlled forward, reverse, and side movement. The skimmer had no great speed but plowed its air cushion with equal efficiency over land, water, snow, mud, ice, sand, or rock. Its drive could be adapted to a variety of fuels and power sources.

  The second stand simulated an airsled, not as clumsy as its name implied and capable of considerable speed and maneuverability. It was the long-haul craft, the Crystal Cutter’s official vehicle, capable of delivering cargo and passengers to any point on Ballybran.

  The third simulator was a satellite shuttle, it caused Rimbol’s eyes to widen appreciatively, but Killashandra sincerely hoped she would not be asked to pilot it.

  Though all were bored by waiting their turn, Killashandra had no trouble with the skimmer simulation. The sled was more complex, but she felt she acquitted herself fairly well, though she’d certainly want a lot more practice in the vehicle before flying any distance.

  “You know who failed the skimmer test?” Rimbol asked, joining her as she emerged from the airsled.

  “Shillawn?” But then she saw the gangly man still waiting on line.

  “No. Carigana.”

  “How could anyone not be able to fly a skimmer?”

  “A skimmer needs a light hand.” Rimbol’s smile was malicious. “Carigana’s used to a spacesuit. Ever noticed how she always turns her entire body around to face you? That’s from wearing a servomech for so long. That’s why her movements are so jerky—overcorrected. She over-reacts, too. As we all know. Hey, we’d better scurry. Instructor Tukolom”—and Rimbol grinned at the title with which the flight officer had pointedly addressed their tutor—“says we’re due back at the training lounge for the afternoon’s entrancing lectures.”

  Carigana might well have been floating in deep space in a servomech suit for all the notice she gave to Tukolom’s recitations on the care and packing of crystal cuttings. He informed Class 895 that they must pay strict attention to these procedures, as one of their first official tasks for their Guild would be to prepare crystal for export. As he spoke—he reminded them—Crystal Cutters were in the ranges, making the most of the mild spring weather and the favorable aspects of the moons. When the Cutters returned, Class 895 would be privileged to have its first experience with handling crystal, in all its infinite variety . . . and value.

  The reverence with which Tukolom made the announcement showed Killashandra a new and unexpected facet of the humorless instructor. Did crystal affect even those who did not sing it? How long had Tukolom been a Guild member? Not that she really wanted to know. She was just intrigued by his uncharacteristic radiance when discussing, of all the dull subjects, the packing of crystal.

  As soon as Tukolom released the class from the lecture, she murmured something about returning in a moment to Rimbol and slipped away to her room. She drew out the console and tapped the Flight Office, requesting the use of a skimmer for personal relaxation. The display spilled out a confirmation that she could use vehicle registry VZD7780 for two hours, confined to overland flight.

  As she slipped from her room, she was relieved to see Rimbol’s door open. He was still in the lounge, so she suppressed the vague disquiet she felt about sneaking off without him. Her first visit to the crystal ranges was better experienced as a solo. Besides, if Rimbol and Shillawn couldn’t figure out how to obtain a clearance, they d
idn’t deserve one.

  The vast hangar complex was eerily empty. A light breeze sighed through the vacant racks for Singers’ airsleds as Killashandra hurried to the skimmer section. An airsled engine revved unexpectedly and caused her to leap inches off the plascrete surface; then she saw the cluster of mechanics on the far side of the building, where lights exposed the sled’s drive section.

  Killashandra finally located the VZD rack and her assigned craft at the top of the skimmer section. The vehicle was sand-scraped, although the plasglas bubble was relatively unscathed. She climbed in, backed the skimmer carefully clear of the rack, and proceeded from the hangar at a sedate pace.

  “Pilot may fly only in area designated on master chart,” a mechanical voice announced; to her left, an opaque square lit to display an overlay of the Joslin plateau, the Guild complex out of which a small flashing dot, herself, was moving.

  “Pilot complies.”

  “Weather alert must be obeyed by immediate return to hangar. Weather holding clear and mild: no storm warning presently in effect.” As she cleared the hangar, she noticed three figures emerge from the ramp. She chuckled—she’d got her skimmer first.

  She didn’t want to be followed, so she pushed the control bar forward for maximum speed. The master chart cut off just at the fringe of the Milekey Range to the northeast but close enough for her to see exactly what she had mortgaged her life for. It was suddenly very necessary to Killashandra to stand on the edge of this possible future of hers; to be close to it; to make it more vivid than Tukolom’s carefully recited lessons; to make her understand why Borella had smiled in longing.

  The old skimmer didn’t like being pushed to maximum speed and vibrated unpleasantly. None of the function dials were in the red, so Killashandra ignored the shaking, keeping on the northeasterly course. The Brerrerton Range would have been closer, almost directly south, but Milekey had been the range Carrik frequently mentioned, and her choice had been subconsciously affected by him. Well, the others were certain to head to the nearer range, which was fine by her.

  Once she had bounced over the first hill, Killashandra saw the smudge of the range, occasionally reflecting the westering sun. Beneath her, the dull gray-green shrub and ground cover of Ballybran passed without change. Dull exteriors so often hid treasures. Who could ever have thought Ballybran worth half credit? She recalled the model of the planet that Borella had shown them on Shankill. It was as if cosmic hands had taken the world and twisted it so that the softer interior material had been forced through the crust, forming the jagged ranges that bore crystal, and then capriciously the same hands had yanked the misshapen spheres out, the ridges falling inward.

  The plain gave way to a series of deep gullies that in a wetter season, might have become streams. The first of the jagged upthrusts coincided with the edge of her chart, so she settled the skimmer on the largest promontory and got out.

  To either side and before her, the planet’s folds stretched, each cline peering through a gap or a few meters higher than the one before. Shading her eyes, she strained to see any evidence of the shining crystal that was the hidden and unique wealth of such an uninviting planet.

  The silence was all but complete, the merest whisper of sound, not wind, and transmitted not through the atmosphere but through the rock under her feet. A strange sound to be experienced so, as if her heel were responding to a vibration to which her keen ears, expectant, were not attuned. Not precisely comprehending the urge to test the curious unsilence, Killashandra drew a deep breath and expelled it on a fine clear E.

  The single note echoed back to her ears and through her heels, the resonance coursing to her nerve ends, leaving behind, as the sound died away, a pleasurable sensation that caressed her nervous system. She stood entranced but hesitated to repeat the experience, so she scanned the dirty, unpretentious mounds. Now she was willing to believe what Carrik had said and, equally, was credulous of the hazards attached. The two facets of singing crystal were linked: the good and bad, the difficult, the ecstatic.

  She quickly discarded a notion to fly deeper into the range. Common sense told her that any crystal in the immediate vicinity would long since have been removed. A more practical restraint was Killashandra’s recognition that it would be easy to lose oneself beyond the curiously reassuring flatness of the plain and the sight of the White Sea. However, she did skim along the first ridges, always keeping the plain in sight and at the edge of her flight chart. The undulating hills fascinated her as the sharper, young thrusts and anticlines of Fuerte had not. Ballybran’s ranges tempted, taunted, tantalized, hiding wealth produced by titanic forces boiling from the molten core of the planet: a wealth created by the technical needs of an ever-expanding galactic population and found on an ancient world with no other resources to commend it. That was ever the way of technology: to take the worthless and convert it into wealth.

  Eventually, Killashandra turned the skimmer back toward the Guild Complex. She had renewed her determination to become a Singer, which had been dampened somewhat by Tukolom and an instructional mode that subtly ignored the main objective of the recruits—becoming a Crystal Singer. She could understand why their initiation took the form it had—until the symbiosis occurred, no lasting assignments could be made, but other worthwhile skills and ranks could be examined. She sighed, wondering if she could sustain another defeat. Then she laughed, remembering how facilely she had shrugged off ten-years’ hard work when Carrik had dangled his lure. Yet, to be perfectly honest, he hadn’t dangled: he’d argued against her taking such a step, argued vehemently.

  What had Rimbol said about being denied making an object more desirable? And it was true that the maestro’s histrionic condemnation of Carrik and Crystal Singers had done much to increase her desire. She had, of course, been so elated by her interlude with Carrik that the luxurious standard of living—and playing—to which he had introduced her had been a lure to one who had had no more than student credit. Carrik’s fascinating personality had bemused her and given her the recklessness to throw off the restraints of a decade of unrewarded discipline.

  Now that she had stood close to crystal source, felt that phenomenal vibration through bone and nerve, a call to the core of her that her involvement with music had never touched, she was strengthened in her purpose.

  A lone figure was climbing about the skimmer racks when Killashandra returned. She noticed eight other empty slots as she parked her vehicle. The figure waved urgently for her to remain by her skimmer and quickly climbed up to her. Killashandra waited politely, but the man checked the registry of the skimmer first, then ran his hands along the sides, frowning. He began a tactile examination of the canopy without so much as glancing at her in the seat. He muttered as he made notations on his jotter. The display alarmed him, and for the first time he noticed her, opening the canopy.

  “You weren’t out long. Has something happened to one of the others? Nine of you went out!”

  “No, nothing’s wrong.”

  Relieved, he gave a pull to the visored cap he wore.

  “Only have so many skimmers, and I shouldn’t ought to’ve given out nine to recruits, but no one else requested.”

  Killashandra stepped from the skimmer, and the hangar man was instantly inside, running fingers over the control surface, the steering rod, as if her mere physical presence might have caused damage.

  “I’m not careless with equipment,” she said, but he gave no indication he had heard.

  “You’re Killashandra?” He finished his inspection and looked around at her as he closed the canopy.

  “Yes.”

  He grunted and made another entry on his jotter, watching the display.

  “Do you always inspect each vehicle as it’s used?” she asked, trying to be pleasant.

  He made no comment. Was it because of her lowly rank as a recruit? A sudden resentment flared past the serenity she had achieved in the range. She touched his arm and repeated her question.

  “Always
. My job. Some of you lot are damned careless and give me more work than necessary. Don’t mind doing my proper job, but unnecessary work is not on. Just not on.”

  A loud whine from the service bays startled Killashandra, but the hangar man didn’t flinch. It was then that she realized the man was deaf. A second ear-piercing whine erupted, and she winced, but it elicited no reaction from the man. Deafness must be a blessing in his occupation.

  Giving the returned skimmer one last sweep of his hand, the hangar man began to climb to check another vehicle, unconscious of Killashandra’s presence. She stared after him. Had his job, his dedication to the preservation of his skimmers, supplanted interest in people? If she received deafness from the symbiont, would she detach herself from people so completely?

  She made her way down to the hangar floor, startled each time the engine being repaired blasted out its unbaffled noise. She might have renounced music as a career, but never to hear it again? She shuddered convulsively.

  She had been so positive on Fuerte that hers was to be a brilliant career as a solo performer, maybe she’d better not be so bloody certain of becoming a Crystal Singer and explore the alternatives within the Guild.

  Suddenly, she didn’t want to return to the recruits’ lounge, nor did she wish to hear the accounts of the other eight who had skimmed away from the Guild Complex. She wanted to be private. Getting out by herself, to the edge of the range, had been beneficial, the encounter with the hangar man an instructive countertheme.

  She walked quickly from the hangar, caught by the stiff breeze and bending into it. The eastern sky was darkening; glancing over her shoulder, she saw banks of western clouds tinged purple by the setting sun. She paused, savoring the display, and then hurried on. She didn’t wish to be sighted by the returning skimmers. Finally past the long side of the Complex, she struck out up a low hill, her boots scuffling in the dirt. A warm spicy smell rose when she trod on the low ground cover. She listened to the rising wind, not merely with her ears but with her entire body, planting her boot heels firmly in the soil, hoping to experience again that coil of body-felt sound. The wind bore the taint of brine and chill but no sound as it eddied past her and away east.