Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  “We must also improve on nature’s whimsy,” he added just as the recruits noticed the work crews and the damage to the next building.

  Killashandra exchanged glances with Rimbol, who was grinning. They both shrugged and joined the agronomists in finishing the storm repairs.

  “At least, it’s only finishing,” Rimbol muttered as he pressed a trigger on a screw gun. “What do they do when they haven’t got three decades of recruits to fill up work gangs?”

  “Probably draft suppliers and sorters and anyone else unoccupied. At least, here everyone takes a turn,” she added, noticing that both Tukolom and the chief agronomist were heaving plastic as willingly as Borton and Jezerey.

  “There, now, you can let go, Killa.” He stood back to survey the panel they had just secured. “That ought to hold until another boulder gets casually bounced off the corner.”

  Shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun to her left, Killashandra peered northerly, toward the crystal ranges.

  “Don’t even think about it,” Rimbol said, taking her hand down and turning her. He gathered up his tools. “I wonder what’s in store for us tomorrow?”

  He had no banter on the return trip, nor had anyone else. Killashandra wished she’d thought to ask the agronomist about the ground-cover plants and shrubs. And amused herself by wondering if he bothered with such common varieties.

  Tension put an effective damper on recruit spirits that evening, a damper unrelieved even by some moderate drinking. Rimbol, who had been the class wit, was not disposed to resume that mantle.

  “Are you all right?” Killashandra asked him as he stared into his half-empty beer.

  “Me?” He raised his eyebrows in affected surprise at her question. “Sure. I’m tired. No more than the accumulation of more hard work in the past . . . few days than I’ve had to do in years. Student living softens the muscles.”

  He patted her arm, grinning reassuringly, and finished his beer, politely ending that subject. When she returned with a refill of her own beaker, he was gone. Well, she thought sadly, he has as much right to Privacy as I, and neither of us is good company tonight.

  Sleep did not come easily that night for Killashandra. She doubted she was alone in her insomnia, though that was no consolation. Her mind continually reviewed the symptoms Borella had described for the onset of the adaptation. Fever? Would she recognize one, for she’d never had a severe systemic illness. Nausea? Well, she had had bad food now and again or drunk too much. Diarrhea? She’d experienced that from overeating the first sweet yellow melons as a girl. The thought of being completely helpless, weak in the thrall of an alien invasion—yes, that was an appropriate description of the abhorrent to Killashandra. Cold swept across her body, the chill of fear and tension.

  It had all seemed so easy to contemplate on Shankill: symbiosis with an alien spore would enrich her innate abilities, endow her with miraculous recuperative powers, a much increased lifespan, the credit to travel luxuriously, the prestige of being a member of a truly elite Guild. The attractive parts of a felicitous outcome of her adaptation to the spore had, until this dark and lengthy night, far outweighed the unemphasized alternatives. Deafness? She wouldn’t have sung professionally anyhow, not after what the judges had said about her voice, but the choice not to sing had to be hers, not because she couldn’t hear herself. To be a sorter like Enthor, with his augmented vision? Could she endure that? She’d bloody have to, wouldn’t she? Yet Enthor seemed content, even jealous of his ability to value crystal.

  Had she not desired to be highly placed? To be first sorter of the exclusive Heptite Guild qualified. How long would it take to become first sorter? With lives as long as those the inhabitants of Ballybran could lead?

  How long would it have taken her to become a Singer of stellar rank, much less solo performer anywhere, had her voice passed the Jury? The thoughts mocked her, and Killashandra twisted into yet another position in which to find sleep.

  She was well and truly caught and had no one to blame but herself. Caught? What was it the older Singer had asked Borella on the shuttle? “How was the catch?” No, “Much of a catch?” “The usual,” Borella had replied. “One can never tell at this time.”

  Catch? Fools like herself, warned by Carrik and Maestro Valdi, not to mention the FSP officials, were the catch, those who would trade solid reality for illusion—the illusion of being wealthy and powerful, feared, and set apart by the tremendous burden that came with crystal singing.

  And no guarantee that one would become a Singer! Carigana had been right. Nothing would matter until adaptation, for none of the lectures and work had been specifically oriented toward the role of the Singer: nothing had been explained about the art of cutting crystal from the face, or how to tune a cutter, or where in the ranges to go.

  Tossing, Killashandra recalled the contorted features of Uyad, arguing for credit to take him off-planet: the stained Singers stumbling from their sleds across the wind-battered hangar—and the condition of those sleds that gave an all too brutal picture of the conditions that Singers endured to cut enough crystal to get off the planet.

  Yet Borella’s voice had held longing when she spoke of returning to the crystal ranges . . . as if she couldn’t wait.

  Would singing crystal be analogous to having the lead role in a top-rank interstellar company?

  Killashandra flailed her arms, shaking her head from side to side. Anything was better than being classed as an anonymous chorus leader. Wasn’t it?

  She rearranged her limbs and body into the classic position for meditation, concentrated on breathing deeply and pushing back all extraneous and insidious conjectures.

  Her head was heavy the next morning, and her eyes felt scratchy in their sockets. She’d no idea how long she had slept finally, but the brightness of the morning was an affront to her mental attitude; with a groan, she darkened the window. She was in no mood to admire hillsides.

  Nor was anyone else in a much better state, ordering their breakfasts quietly and eating alone. Nonetheless, Killashandra was disgusted not to have noticed the absences. Especially Rimbol’s. Later, in a wallow of private guilt, she rationalized that she had been groggy with lack of sleep and certainly not as observant as usual. People were straggling into the lounge. It was Shillawn, stammering badly, who first noticed.

  “Killashandra, have you seen Rimbol yet? Or Mistra?” Mistra was the slender dark girl with whom Shillawn had been pairing.

  “Overslept?” was her immediate irritated reaction.

  “Who can sleep through the waking buzz? He’s not in his room. It’s—too empty.”

  “Empty?”

  “His gear. He had things when he came. Nothings there now.”

  Killashandra half ran to Rimbol’s room. It was, as Shillawn had said, very empty, without the hint of a recent occupation, antiseptically clean.

  “Where is Rimbol, former occupant of this room?” Killashandra asked.

  “Infirmary,” a detached voice said after a negligible pause.

  “Condition?”

  “Satisfactory.”

  “Mistra?” Shillawn managed to ask.

  “Infirmary.”

  “Condition?”

  “Satisfactory!”

  “Hey, look, you two”—and Borton diverted the attention of the group waiting in the corridor—“Carigana’s gone, too.”

  The forbidding red light on that door was off.

  Shillawn gulped, glanced apologetically at Killashandra. Carigana’s condition, too, was satisfactory.

  “I wonder if dying is considered satisfactory,” Killashandra said, seething with frustration.

  “Negative,” replied the computer.

  “So we get whisked away in the night and never seen again?” Jezerey asked, clinging to Borton’s hand, her eyes dark and scared.

  “Distress being noted by sensitive monitors, proper treatment immediately initiated,” Tukolom said. He had arrived without being noticed. “All proceeds properly.”
He accorded them an almost paternal smile that faded quickly to an intense scrutiny of the faces before him. Apparently satisfied, he beckoned them to follow him to the lounge.

  “He makes me feel as if I ought to have come down sick, too,” Jezerey murmured so that just Killashandra and Borton heard.

  “I wish the hell I had,” Killashandra assured her. She tried not to imagine Rimbol, tossing feverishly, or convulsed.

  “Today concerns weather,” Tukolom announced portentously and frowned at the groans from his audience.

  Killashandra hid her face and gripped her fingers into fists until her nails dug painfully into her palms. And he has to pick today to talk about weather.

  Some of what he said on the subject of meteorology as that science applied to Ballybran and its moons penetrated her depression. In spite of herself, she learned of all the safety devices, warnings, visual evidences of imminent turbulence, and the storm duties of Guild members—all available personnel were marshaled to unload Singers’ airsleds, not just unclassified recruits.

  Tukolom then guided his meek students to the met section of the Guild control rooms, and there they were able to watch other people watching satellite pictures, moon relays, and the printout of the diverse and sensitive instrumentation recording temperatures, suspended particles, wind speed and direction from the sensor network on the planet.

  Killashandra didn’t think much of herself as a met worker. The swirling clouds mesmerized her, and she found it difficult to remember which moon view she was supposed to observe. The computer translated the data into forecasts, constantly updated, compared, overseen by both human and machine. Another sort of symbiosis. One she didn’t particularly care to achieve.

  Tukolom shepherded them down to the hangar again, to accompany a maintenance crew to one of the nearby sensor units. They were filing aboard the transport when Jezerey went into a spasm, dropping to the plascrete, her face flushed. She moaned as a convulsion seized her.

  Borton was on his knees beside her, but two strangers appeared as if teleported, inserted her into a padded cocoon, and bore her off.

  “Entirely normal are such manifestations of the adaptation,” Tukolom said, peering into Borton’s face as the man stared anxiously after his friend. “Delay these technicians longer we may not.”

  “They don’t bloody care,” Borton said in a savage tone, bouncing into the hard seat next to Killashandra. “She was a package to them. They’re glad to see us get sick.”

  “I’d rather come down than watch others,” Killashandra replied, softening her voice out of compassion for his distress. She already missed Rimbol irreverent comments and his sustaining good humor. Borton had been paired with Jezerey all during their long wait on Shankill.

  “Not knowing ‘when’ gets to you.”

  Borton stared out at the hills passing under the transport, immersed in his concern, and she did not invade his privacy.

  Jezerey’s collapse cast a further pall over the remaining travel. Shillawn, sitting across the aisle from Killashandra, swallowed with such rhythmic nervousness that she couldn’t look in his direction. The habit had always irritated her: now it was a major aggravation. She looked in the other direction past Borton, to the swiftly changing view. The colors of the brush, the stunted trees, even the glancing lights the sun struck from exposed rock formations formed a delightful visual display. Though she had always been acutely aware of stage motion, rhythm, and flow, Killashandra had not had much opportunity to view the natural state. The surface of this rugged, unkempt, ancient planet emphasized the artificiality of the performing arts world and its continual emphasis on the “newest” form of expression. She had once considered the performing arts the be-all and end-all of ambition. Ballybran, in its eternal struggle for survival against gigantic natural forces, appealed to another instinct in her.

  The recruits examined the weather station, its sensors fully extended and the thick trunk of the unit completely extruded from the installation into which it retreated like a burrowing animal during “inclement weather.” Their guide’s phrase occasioned wry laughter. He even smiled at their response. Ballybraners had struck Killashandra as a humorless crew, and she wondered if the fever would wrest her sense of the ridiculous from her. Rimbol wouldn’t be the same person without his funning.

  Tukolom then announced that they would assist the technician by applying to the weather station a protective film against gale-flung particles. The recruits had first to scrape off the previous application, not an arduous job since the gale had removed most of the substance, which was not a jelly, a lubricant or a true paint.

  Killashandra found the scraping and painting soothing occupations, for she had to concentrate on keeping her brush strokes even. Overlapping was better than skimping. She could see where the alloy of the arm she worked on had been scored in thin lines that argued other workers had not been as conscientious. Concentration kept her from disturbing reflections such as Rimbol’s being “satisfactory” and Jezerey’s convulsions.

  Borton demonstrated his anxieties by being loud in complaint on the return journey, nagging at Tukolom for more details than the “satisfactory” prognosis. Although Killashandra sympathized with the former shuttle pilot’s concern for his friend, his harangues began to irritate. She was sorely tempted to tell him to turn it off, but the scraping and painting had tired her, and she couldn’t summon the energy to speak.

  When the transport settled back at the hangar, she made sure she was the last to descend. She wanted nothing more than a hot bath and quiet.

  Nor was she refreshed at all by the bathing. She dialed for a Yarran beer and for information on Rimbol. He was continuing “satisfactory,” and the beer tasted off. A different batch, she thought, not up to the standard of the Guild at all. But she sipped it, watching the dying day color her hillside with rapid shifts into the deepest purples and browns of shadow. She left the half-finished beer and stretched out on her bed, wondering if the fatigue she felt was cumulative or the onset of the symbiotic fever. Her pulse was normal, and she was not flushed. She pulled the thermal cover over her, turned on her side, and fell asleep wondering what would be found for the remainder of the recruits to do on the morrow.

  The waking buzz brought her bolt upright in the bed.

  “Lower that narding noise!” she cried, hands to her ears to muffle the incredible din.

  Then she stared about her in surprise. The walls of her quarters were no longer a neutral shade but sparkled with many in the all-too-brilliant morning sun. She turned up the window opacity to cut the blinding glare. She felt extraordinarily rested, clearer of mind than she had since the morning she realized she didn’t owe Fuerte or the Music Center any further allegiance. As she made for the toilet, the carpeting under her bare feet felt strangely harsh. She was aware of subtle odors in the facility, acrid, pungent, overlaid by the scent she used. She couldn’t remember spilling the container last night. The water as she washed her face and hands had a softness to it she had not previously noticed.

  When she shrugged into her coverall, its texture was oddly coarse on her hands. She scrubbed them together and then decided that perhaps there’d been something abrasive in the paint she had used the day before. But her feet hadn’t painted anything!

  Noise struck her the moment the door panel opened. She flinched, reluctant to enter the corridor, which she was startled to find empty. The commotion was coming from the lounge. She could identify every voice, separating one conversation from another by turning her head. Then she noticed the guide stripe at the far end of the corridor, a stripe that was no longer dull gray but a vivid bluish purple.

  She stepped back into her room and closed the panel, unable to comprehend the immense personal alteration that had apparently transformed her overnight.

  “Am I satisfactory?” she cried out, a wild exultation seizing her. She threw her arms about her shoulders. “Is MY condition satisfactory?”

  A tap on her door panel answered her.

/>   “Come in.”

  Tukolom stood there with two Guild medics. That did not surprise her. The expression on Tukolom’s face did. The mentor drew back in astonishment, expressions of incredulity, dismay, and indignation replacing his customary diffidence. It struck Killashandra a peculiar that this man, who had undoubtedly witnessed the transformation of thousands of recruits, should appear displeased at hers.

  “You will be conducted to the infirmary to complete the symbiosis.” Tukolom took refuge in a rote formula. His hand left his side just enough to indicate that she should leave with the medics.

  Thoroughly amused at his reaction and quite delighted with herself, Killashandra stepped forward eagerly, then turned with the intention of picking up the lute. Now that she knew she’d have her hearing the rest of her life, she wanted the instrument.

  “Your possessions to you will be later brought. Go!” Tukolom’s anger and frustration were not overt. His face was suffused with red.

  There was not the least physical or philosophical resemblance between Tukolom and Maestro Valdi, yet at the moment Killashandra was reminded of her former teacher. She turned her back on Tukolom and followed her guides to the ramp. Just as she emerged from the corridor, she heard Tukolom peremptorily calling for attention. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that every head was turned in his direction. Once again, she had made a major exit without an audience.

  CHAPTER 6

  It was bad enough to be whisked away as if she’d committed a crime, but the meditechs kept asking if she felt faint or hot or cold, as if she was negligent when she denied any physical discomfort. Therefore, she could scarcely admit to a sense of vitality she had never previously experienced, to the fact that everything about her, even their plain green tunics, had taken on a new luster, that her fingers twitched to touch, her ears vibrated to minute sounds. Most of all, she wanted to shout her exultation in octaves previously impossible for the human voice.