Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  Lanzecki’s eyes halted her outburst

  “The symbiont has few limitations: deliberate and constant abuse is one. The age of its host is another. Add the third factor—Keborgen stayed too long in the ranges despite storm warnings.” He turned back to look at the three pieces of black crystal on the weighplate and at the credit valuation blinking on the display.

  If Keborgen was dead, who inherited the credit? She jumped as Lanzecki spoke again.

  “So, Killashandra Ree, you are sensitive to the blacks, and you have enjoyed a Milekey transition.”

  Killashandra could not avoid the Guild Master’s disconcerting appraisal. He seemed neither as remote nor detached as he had the day she had arrived at Shankill with Carrik. His eyes, especially, were intensely alive. A nearly imperceptible upward movement of his lips brought her restless gaze to his mouth. Wide, well-shaped lips evidently reflected his thoughts more than eye, face, or body. Did she amuse him? No, probably not. The Guild Master was not known for his humor; he was held in great respect and some awe by men and women who were awed by little and respected nothing but credit. She felt her shoulders and back stiffen in automatic reaction to the flick of amusement.

  “Thank you, Killashandra Ree, for your prompt discovery of that triad,” Lanzecki said with a slight inclination of his head that reinforced his gratitude. Then he turned and was gone, as quickly as he had arrived.

  Exhaling, Killashandra leaned against Enthor’s table.

  “Always good to know black when it’s near you.” Enthor paused as he gingerly unpacked shards. He blinked his eyes to focus on the weight display. “Trouble is finding it in the first place.”

  “What’s the second place?” she asked impudently.

  Enthor blinked his lens into place and gave her a shrewd look. “Remembering where the first place was!”

  She left him, walking back through Sorting to Storage and out onto the hangar deck, the shortest way back to an arc lift down to her quarters. Hangar personnel were busy dismantling Keborgen’s wreck. She grimaced. So a damaged ship was repaired as long and as often as necessary during its owner’s lifetime—and then stripped. Had Carrik’s sled been dismembered?

  She halted at a sudden notion, wheeled and stared out at the hills in the direction of Keborgen’s eratic last flight. She half ran to the Hangar Ready Room for a look at the met printout, continuously displayed and updated by the minute.

  “That storm to the southeast? It’s dissipating?”

  The weather officer glanced up, a frown on his face. Forestalling rejection, Killashandra held up her wrist-band. He immediately tapped out a replay of the satellite recording, which showed the formation of the storm and its turbulent progress along the coast of the main continent and the Milekey Ranges. The gale had blown up quickly and, as unpredictably as most Ballybran storms, caressed one large sector of the range and then roiled seaward across the edge of the Long Plain where warm air had met its colder mass.

  “I was on the wrecker which brought Keborgen in, but I must have dropped my wrist-unit there. Can I use a skimmer?”

  The met officer shrugged. “For all of me you can have a skimmer. No weather to speak of in our zone. Check with Flight.”

  Flight thought her cack-handed to have dropped equipment and assigned her a battered vehicle. She paused long enough to note that the recovery pattern of the wrecker was still displayed on the emergency screen. Once she left the office, she made notes on her wrist unit.

  She unracked the skimmer and left the hangar at a sedate pace entirely consistent with a routine errand, then flew to the crash site. She was increasingly possessed by the thought that Keborgen, trying to outrun the storm, surely must have come back to the complex by the most direct route. Though Concera had maundered on and on about how careful Singers were to protect their claims by using devious routes to and from, Keborgen might just as easily have flown straight in the hope of reaching safety. His sled had come in well behind the others from the same area.

  Given that possibility, she could establish from data retrieval the exact second when the storm warning had been broadcast, compute the maximum speed of his sled, the direction of flight at the time of his crash, and deduce in what general area he had cut black crystal. She might even do a probability computation on the length of time Keborgen had delayed at his claim by the span of time it had taken the other thirty-nine Singers to return.

  She hovered the skimmer over the crash site. The sharp mounds were beginning to soften as a brisk breeze shifted the soil. Skewing the skimmer, she located the next skid mark and two more before she spotted the raw scrape across the bare rock of a higher slope. She landed to examine the marks closely. The scar was deeper on the north side, as if the sled had been deflected by the contact. She stood in the mark and took bearings through her wrist unit. Then she returned to the skimmer and quartered the sector, looking for any other evidence of Keborgen’s faltering, bumping last flight.

  Shadows and sunset made it inadvisable for her to continue her search. Killashandra checked her bearings and then returned to the complex.

  CHAPTER 7

  Killashandra leaned back from the terminal in her room, noted that the time display marked an early-morning hour. She was tired, her eyes hot with fatigue, and she was ravenous. But she had every bit of data she could extract from the Guild’s banks that might be useful in narrowing her search for Keborgen’s black-crystal claim. She keyed the program into the privacy of her personal record, then stood and walked stiffly, arching against the ache in her back, to the catering unit where she dialed for a hot soup. Though she had stored the data, she couldn’t stop thinking about her plan. And all the obstacles to its implementation.

  Keborgen was dead. His claims, wherever they had been, were now open according to the vast paragraphs on “Claims, the making and marking thereof, penalties for misappropriation, fines and restrictions,” and all subparagraphs. However, the claim first had to be found. As Enthor had said, that was the first problem. Killashandra might have theories about its location, but she had neither sled to get there and look nor cutter to take crystal from the “open” face. Her research revealed that Keborgen had worked the claim for at least four decades and analysis proved that twelve black-crystal cuttings had come from the same face, the next to last one some nine years previously. The second problem, as Enthor had so pithily stated, was remembering.

  To relieve the tedium of drill, Killashandra had asked Concera how Singers found their way back to claims after an absence, especially if memory was so unreliable.

  “Oh,” Concera had replied airily, “I always remember to tell my sled what landmarks to look for. Sleds have voice print recorders so they’re dead safe.” She hesitated, looking in an unfocused way that was habitual with her. “Of course, storms do sometimes alter landmarks, so it’s wiser to record contour levels and valleys or gorges, things that aren’t as apt to be rearranged by a bad blow. Then, too,” she continued in a brighter voice, “when you’ve cut at a particular face a few times, it resonates. So if you can recall even the general direction and get there, finding the exact spot is much easier.”

  “It isn’t so much singing crystal then, as being sung to by crystal,” Killashandra had noted.

  “Oh, yes, very well put,” Concera said with the false cheerfulness of someone who hadn’t understood.

  Killashandra finished the soup and wearily shuffled to the bedroom, shedding her coverall. She wasn’t unsatisfied with the information she’d accumulated. She could narrow the search to older claim markings in the geographical area dictated by the top speed of Keborgen’s elderly sled, the time the storm warning was issued, and the registered storm wind speed.

  She fretted about one point. Keborgen’s sled recorder. She had seen the sled being dismantled, but would the Guild technicians have rescued the record for the data that might be retrieved? She wasn’t certain if anyone had ever broken a voice code. It hadn’t been so much as whispered that it was possible. Though the ru
les did not state the Guild was able to take such an action, a terrible breach of privacy under FSP rights, the Charter didn’t specifically deny the Guild that right, either, once the member was dead. On the other hand, Trag had said that private personal records were irretrievable.

  The darkness and absolute silence of her bedroom compounded her sudden doubt. The Guild could and occasionally did exhibit a certain ruthlessness. For sanity’s sake, she had better decide here and now whether or not the Guild adhered faithfully to its stated and endlessly cited principles. She took a sudden comfort in the very length of the Charter. Its voluminous paragraphs and sections obviously reflected contingencies and emergencies that had been dealt with over four hundred years of usage and abuse.

  With a sigh, Killashandra turned over. Avoiding restrictions and defying laws were completely in the human condition. As the Guild prohibited, it also protected or the bloody planet would have been abandoned to the spores and crystal.

  She woke later in the morning to the insistent buzz of her terminal. She was informed that her cutter was now ready and she was to collect it and report to training room 47. Groggy from insufficient sleep, Killashandra took a quick shower and ate a good meal. She found herself directing glances to the computer console, almost as if she expected last night’s data to spring from the cover and expose itself.

  Computers had to deal with fact, and she had one advantage that wouldn’t compute: a sensitivity to black crystal—Keborgen’s black crystal. Computers did not volunteer information, either, but she had few doubts that with the news of Keborgen’s death, the opening of his rich claim would be widely known. Only 39 Singers had come in from that same storm. She couldn’t know how many other Singers had returned from leave and were available to search. She knew that the odds against her finding the claim were good on the one hand and unlikely on the other. The delivery of her cutter she took as propitious.

  She was waiting for the lift when she heard her name called in an incredulous shout.

  “Killashandra! I’m recovered. I’m a Singer, too.”

  Herself astonished, she turned to find Rimbol striding toward her.

  “Rimbol!” She returned his enthusiastic embrace, acutely aware that she hadn’t given him any thought at all in several days.

  “I was told you’d got through the transition satisfactorily, but no one else’s seen you! Are you all right?” Rimbol held her from him, his green eyes searching her face and figure. “Was it just the fever, or did you come see me at one point?”

  “I did at several points,” she replied with perfect truth and instinctive diplomacy. “Then I was told that I was interfering with your recovery. Who else is through?”

  Rimbol’s expression changed to sorrow. “Carigana didn’t make it. Shillawn is deaf and has been assigned to research. Mistra, Borton, Jezerey, bless the pair; in total twenty-nine made it. Celee, the spacer, made only a tolerable adjustment, but he’s got all his senses, so he’s been shunted to shuttle piloting. I don’t think that goes against his grain, anyway.”

  “And Shillawn? Does he mind?” Killashandra knew her voice was sharp, and Rimbol’s face clouded until she hugged him. He was going to have to learn not to care so much about people now. “I really think Shillawn will be happier in research than cutting. Celee was already a pilot, so he’s lost nothing . . . Antona told me Carigana wouldn’t surrender to the spore.”

  Rimbol frowned, his body stiffening, so that she released him.

  “She rebelled against everything, Rimbol. Didn’t you ask Antona?”

  “No.” Rimbol ducked his head, a silly grin on his face. “I was afraid to while others were going through transition.”

  “Now it’s all over. And you’re installed on Singer Level.” She saw the wrist-band and showed him hers. “Where’re you bound for now?”

  “To be fitted with my cutter.” His green eyes brightened with enthusiasm.

  “Then we can go together. I’m to collect mine.”

  They had entered the lift, and Rimbol half turned in surprise.

  “Collect it?”

  “They did tell you how long you’ve been ill, didn’t they?” Killashandra knew her quick question was to give herself time. Rimbol’s eyes mirrored surprise and then perplexity. “Oh, I lucked out. I had what Antona calls a Milekey transition, so they pushed me out of the infirmary to make room for someone else and put me into training to keep me out of mischief. Here we are, and don’t mind the technician’s manner. He hates to be kept from his fishing.”

  They had come to the cutter office and found Jezerey, Mistra, and two others.

  “Killashandra! You made it!”

  Killashandra thought there was a note of unwelcome surprise in Jezerey’s voice. The girl looked gaunt and had lost her prettiness.

  “Quiet out here,” the Fisher said, his voice cutting through Killashandra’s attempt at reply. He had a cutter in his hand, patently new.

  “You. Killashandra,” and he beckoned her brusquely to the counter as the others stepped back.

  Killashandra was uncomfortably aware of the attention focused on her as she accepted the device. Then she curled her fingers around the power grip, the right hand on the guide, and forgot embarrassment in the thrill of being one step closer to the Crystal Ranges. She gave a little gasp as she saw that her name had been incised in neat letters on the plas housing that covered the infrasonic blade.

  “Bring that back to be serviced after every trip, d’you hear? Otherwise, don’t fault me when it doesn’t cut proper. Understand?”

  Killashandra would have thanked him, but he had turned to the others, beckoning to Borton. Cutter in hand, Killashandra turned and saw the indignation in Jezerey’s eyes, the hurt, surprise, and betrayal in Rimbol’s.

  “Antona tossed me out of the infirmary,” she said, more to Rimbol than the others, but they all seemed to accuse her. “So the Guild put me to work.”

  Holding her head high, she gave them all a polite smile and left the office.

  As she marched down the hall to the lift shafts, she was perversely angry with herself, with their ignorance, and with the Guild for thrusting her ahead of the others. She remembered similar scenes in the Music Center when she had achieved a role or an instrumental solo after unremitting practice and knew that the majority of her peers had favored another. Then she had been responsible. Now, though she had done nothing, consciously, to provoke her fellow recruits, she was being faulted because she’d had a bit of luck, just as she’d been blamed at the Music Center for hard work. What was the use!

  “Watch that fardling cutter!” A savage tone interrupted her mortified self-pity, and someone shoved her to the right with unnecessary force. “I said, watch it!”

  The man backed hastily away from her, for Killashandra had instinctively raised the cutter at the aggressive voice. Her confusion was further complicated by the knowledge that she had been careless and now was acting the fool. To be brought to task did not improve her temper.

  “It’s not on.”

  “It’s bloody dangerous, on or off. Haven’t you had the proper guidance with that?” The tall man glaring at her was Borella’s companion from the shuttle.

  “Then complain to Borella! She instructed us.”

  “Borella?” The Singer stared at her with a perplexed frown. “What has she to do with you?”

  “I was one of her recent ‘catch,’ I believe was her word.”

  His frown increased as his eyes flicked over her, pausing at the wristband.

  “Just received your cutter, my dear?” He smiled now with supercilious condescension. “I’ll forget any charge of discourtesy.” With a slight bow and a sardonic grin, he strode on to the workshop.

  She stared after the man, aware again of the strange magnetism of the Crystal Singer. She’d been furious with him, and yet her anger had been partially fed by his diffidence and her wish to impress him. Had Carrik once been like that, too? And she too green to know?

  She continued to the
lift and entered. The encounter with the Singer had restored some perspective to her. Whatever else, she was a Crystal Singer: more of one than the rest of her class by a physical anomaly and a time factor that were no connivance of hers.

  As she entered training room 47, she received another surprise. Trag was there, leaning against a heavy plastic table, arms folded across his chest, obviously awaiting her.

  “I’m not late?” she asked, and experienced a second jolt of confusion, for the tones of her question seemed to echo sourly in the room. Then she saw the unmistakable plasfoam cartons on the table behind Trag. “Oh, how curious?”

  “Soured crystal,” he said, his deeper voice resounding as hers had. Then he extended his hand for her cutter.

  She released it to him, somewhat reluctantly since it was so recent an acquisition. He inspected every part of the device, even unsheathing the infrasonic blade, which he gave the keenest scrutiny. He moved to her left side, proffering the cutter and watching as she took it by the grips. He checked her hand position and nodded.

  “You are familiar with the controls?” he asked, although he must have known that the Fisher had carefully explained them. “And the process of tuning?” She nodded again, impatient with the catechism.

  Now with a disregard for its contents that made her catch her breath, he dumped onto the plastic table a crystal carton. Trag grinned.

  “This is soured crystal. Sent to us from some of the nearer systems which never bother to employ tuners. These will teach you how to learn that weapon you carry.”

  For one horrified second, Killashandra wondered if Trag had been a witness to her encounter with the other Singer. She glanced down at the device which, she realized, could be used as a weapon.

  From the carton, Trag took five octagons of rose crystal. With a hammer similar to the one Enthor had used, he tapped each in turn. The third crystal was sour, off significantly.

  “Now the five must be retuned to match. I suggest you sing them a full note below this”—and he tapped the faulty octagon—“and shave the top of this until it rings pure against the infrasonic cutter.” He placed the soured crystal in an adjustable standing vise. He tightened the braces and tugged to be sure the crystal was secure. “When this sings properly, you merely recut the others in scale.”