Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  “How did it go sour?”

  “Bracket flaw. Common enough in rose quartz.”

  “Dominant or minor?”

  “Minor will be acceptable.”

  He nodded at her control grip, and she turned on the cutter, remembering to brace her body against the power that would surge through the handle. Trag tapped the sour crystal with his hammer, and she sang the minor note below, twirling the tuner with her thumb until the sound of the cutter matched her pitch.

  The crystal screamed as she laid the blade against it. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to pull away.

  “Slice it evenly,” Trag commanded, his abrupt order steadying her.

  The rose scream blended into a purer tone as the infrasonic cutter completed its surgery. Trag signaled her to turn off the cutter, ignoring her trembling hold. He tapped the crystal, and it sang a pure A minor. He tapped the crystal next in line. A major.

  “Go to the G minor,” he said, fastening the second octagon in place.

  Killashandra found it took an effort to erase the echo of the major note from her mind. Turning on the cutter, setting the tuner to G minor, this time she was ready for the power surge and the cry of crystal. It was not as shrill, but the rose octagon seemed to resist the change in note as she drew the blade across it. Trag tapped the recut G minor and nodded approval, setting the third in the vise.

  When Killashandra had recut the five, she felt drained and, in a bizarre fashion, elated. She had actually cut crystal. She leaned against the table, watching Trag repack them and make appropriate notations on the carton. Then he reached for a second container. Bracket rub again, and Trag made a few derogatory comments on technicians who did not recognize that proper bracketing prolonged the life of crystal.

  “How would beginners like me learn if someone didn’t make such mistakes?” she asked. “You surely don’t use fresh crystal from the ranges.”

  “Those octagons were relatively new. They ought not need tuning yet. I object to carelessness in any form.”

  Killashandra rather thought he would and determined to give him no cause to complain about her.

  She recut the contents of nine boxes, twelve sets of crystal, blue, yellow, and rose. She had earnestly hoped that one of the boxes might reveal black crystal, and as the last box was unpacked to expose two squat blue dodecahedrons, one with a vertical split, she asked if black never had to be recut.

  “Not within my service,” Trag said, glancing at her keenly. “That is partly because the segments are separated and partly because their installation is handled by technicians of impeccable training and standard. Black does not suffer from bracket erosion or mishandling. Black crystal is too valuable.” He put the damaged blue into the brace, split side exposed. “This will require a slightly different technique with your blade. If you slice off the damaged portion entirely, you will have destroyed the symmetry of the form. Therefore, the entire piece must be reshaped, scaled down in the dodecahedron. Ordinarily, one goes from major to minor, minor to major down the scale. This time, you must drop at least a sixth to achieve a pure note. As blues are nearly as common as rose, error presents no great loss. Relax. Proceed.”

  Killashandra had felt unequal to such an exercise, but Trag’s inference that she could err with impunity stiffened her resolve. She heard the sixth below the moment she tapped the blue, set her cutter, and was slicing before he had time to step out of her way. She made the next two cuts without hesitation, listening to the change of pitch in the crystal. Curtly, she nodded for him to turn the dodecahedron in the vise and did three more passes. Only when she had completed the recutting did she turn off her device. Then she stared challengingly at Trag. Blandly, he placed the second crystal in the grips, tapped it and then the recut dodecahedron. They were in tune with each other.

  “That is sufficient for one day, Trag.”

  At the unexpected voice behind her, Killashandra whirled, the cutter again rising in automatic defense, as Lanzecki finished speaking. With the slightest movement of his lips, he eyed the blade turned broadside to him. Instantly, she lowered it and her eyes, embarrassed and agitated by her reaction, and utterly wearied by the morning’s intense concentration.

  “I’d always heard that Fuerte was a pacific planet,” Lanzecki said. “Nevertheless, you take to cutting well, Killashandra Ree.”

  “Does that mean I can get into the ranges soon?”

  She heard Trag’s snort at her presumption, but Lanzecki did not reflect his chief assistant’s attitude. The brown eyes held hers. Meeting that appraising stare, she wondered why Lanzecki was not a Crystal Singer: he seemed much more, so much more than Carrik or Borella or any of the other Crystal Singers she had met or seen.

  “Soon enough not to jeopardize a promising career. Soon enough. Meanwhile, practice makes perfect. This exercise”—and Lanzecki gestured to the boxes of tuned crystal—“is but one of several in which you must excel before you challenge the ranges.”

  He was gone in one of those fluid movements that was swift enough to make Killashandra wonder if Lanzecki had actually made his visit. Yet his brief appearance was undeniable by the effect he had on her and Trag.

  The assistant Guild Master was regarding her with covert interest.

  “Take a radiant bath when you reach your quarters,” Trag said. “You are scheduled for sled simulator practice this afternoon.” He turned away in dismissal.

  The training pattern held until the next rest day, though she wished the two elements could have been reversed, with the sled simulation in the morning when her reflexes were fresher and the cutting in the afternoon so she could collapse. There proved to be a reason for that apparently irrational schedule. As she would invariably be flying the sled after she had cut crystal, she must learn to judge blunted reactions.

  The radiant baths, the viscous liquid a gentle pressure on her tired body, its thick whirling like the most delicate of massages, did freshen after a morning’s intense cutting drill. She checked with the computer and discovered that she was being paid a tuner’s wage for her morning work but charged for the flight officer’s instruction in the afternoon.

  After six days of such an exhausting routine, she looked forward to a day of relaxation. A low-pressure ridge was moving in from the White Sea, so rest day might be cloudy with rain. She had begun to develop the Ballybraners’ preoccupation with meteorology, encouraged by Trag’s invariable questions about weather conditions at the start of each training session.

  Her flight instructor also pressed heavily on weatherwise acumen. His insistence made more sense than Trag’s since a good deal of her simulation drill involved coping with turbulence of varying degrees and types. She began to distinguish among the tonal differences of the warning equipment with which the simulator was equipped. Sound could tell her as clearly as the met display the kind and scope of the gale her practice flights trained her to survive.

  Privately, Killashandra decided the warnings were an overkill situation; after being banged at, rung out, and buzzed, your mind would turn off most of the noise. The nerve tingler, last of the series of cautionary devices, couldn’t be ignored.

  Meanwhile, her practice performance developed from merely adequate to perfect automatic reaction as she simulated flights over every sector of Ballybran, land, sea, and arctic ice. She learned to identify, within seconds of their being displayed on her plan board, the major air and sea currents everywhere on the planet.

  As she practiced, so she learned confidence in her vehicle. The sled was highly maneuverable with VTOL capabilities and a variety of assists to the basic crystalline drive, which had been highly refined for Ballybran’s unusual conditions.

  Killashandra had had only glimpses of the other members of Class 895. Rimbol had waved cheerfully at her from a distance, and she saw Jezerey scooting across the hangar floor once, but Killashandra wouldn’t count on her tolerance unless the girl’s temper had markedly improved since the last time they’d met. Jezerey might be m
ore amenable now that she and the others were in full training.

  She saw Borton first as she wandered into the Commons hall of the Singers’ level. It was an evening when most of the Guild’s full members could relax. No storms were expected despite the low-pressure ridge, and Passover—the ominous conjunction of the three moons that produced the fiercest storms—was nine weeks away. Borton didn’t see Killashandra, for he and the others in the lounge with him were on the far side. Augmented vision had advantages: see first; plan ahead.

  She ordered Yarran beer, a beaker for herself and a pitcher for the group. She was annoyed with herself for anticipating a need for subtle bribery, but an offer made in good faith was unlikely to be refused. Especially of Yarran beer.

  Borton saw her coming when she was about twenty meters away. His expression was of mild surprise, and he beckoned to her, speaking to someone hidden from view by the high back of the seating unit. A stir, exclamations, and Rimbol emerged, meeting her with a wide grin. The sense of relief she felt caused the pitcher to wobble.

  “Don’t waste a drop of good Yarran,” he admonished, rescuing it. “Not everyone’s down. Some are flaked out in radiant tanks. Shillawn has been transferred to the North Helton continent. That’s where they do most of the pure research. Would you believe it, Killa? He doesn’t stammer anymore.”

  “No!”

  “Antona said the symbiosis must have corrected the fault in his palate.” Rimbol was being determinedly affable, Killashandra thought as she took a place on the wide seating unit. Jezerey, seated in a corner of the unit, acknowledged Killashandra’s arrival with a tight smile, Mistra nodded, and Celee and two other men whose names she couldn’t call to mind greeted her. All of them looked tired.

  “Well, I can’t really say I’m sorry Shillawn didn’t make it as a Singer because he certainly won’t be wasted in research,” Killashandra said, raising her beaker in a circular toast to him.

  “You mean, you haven’t cut crystal yet?” Jezerey asked, a strident note in her voice as she pointed to the wristband evident as Killashandra made her toast.

  “Me? Bloody no!” The disgust and frustration in her tone made Rimbol laugh, head thrown back.

  “I told you she hadn’t got that far,” he said to Jezerey. “She only collected the cutter the day we met her.”

  Killashandra overtly eased the band on her wrist, aware now that it constituted her passport to friendship as well as to Singer levels.

  “Furthermore, Jezerey,” she went on, letting resentment sharpen her words, “I’ll be spending weeks more tuning crystal and simulating gale flights before I’m so much as allowed to put my nose past skimmer chart range. And by then there’ll be Passover storms!”

  “Oh, yes.” Jezerey’s attitude brightened, and her smile was complacent. “We’ll all be storm bound then.”

  Killashandra was sensitive to the perceptible change of the atmosphere around her and decided to secure the advantage.

  “I may be a little ahead of you in training—you do know that injured Singers take it on only for the bonuses? Good. Well, once you’ve got those wretched cutters, you’ll know what ‘tired’ means. Cut in the morning, then they send you on simulator flights, and when you’re not doing either of those, it’s drill; regs, rules, claims, fines—” Groans rose from her listeners. “Ah, I see you’re getting the drills.”

  “So what other jollies are we to get?” Rimbol asked, his eyes sparkling with an almost malicious delight.

  Most of those present were interested in any details she’d give concerning the retuning of crystal. She explained as best she could, truthfully if not fully, for she said nothing about Lanzecki’s flattering appearances, her empathy with black crystal, and the rapid progress she seemed to be making in cutting difficult forms. She found it took an effort to be discreet, for she had never practiced tact in the Music Center. She’d be spending the rest of a very long life with these people, had nearly lost their friendship once through circumstances beyond her control, and she wasn’t knowingly going to jeopardize it again.

  Sufficient beer and other intoxicants were consumed by the recruits to make it a convivial evening. Killashandra found herself ready to be on old terms with Rimbol, and many of the tensions that had built over the past few weeks were dissolved in that most harmonious of activities.

  When they woke, rested, they continued, although Killashandra was a trifle surprised to find that they had ended up in Rimbol’s quarters. Location made little difference, as the apartments were in every respect similar. He had done little to furbish his rooms and solicited Killashandra’s assistance. In this way, they passed agreeable hours and virtuously ended with a game reviewing rules and regulations from the clue of a phrase. In the glow of utter relaxation, Killashandra came very close to mentioning Keborgen’s black crystal to Rimbol, rationalizing her evasion later by her desire not to burden her friend with unnecessary detail.

  The next week, she suggested to Concera that she join the others in their classes rather than hold Concera up. The Singer’s two fingers were complete except for nails.

  “You’re not holding me up,” Concera replied, her eyes sliding past Killashandra’s, her mouth pursing with angry frustration. “Those others evidently have priority over a Singer of my long standing. Besides, I only accepted you as a favor, I much prefer single teaching to group learning. Now let’s go on to claims and counterclaims.”

  “I know those paragraphs sideways, frontwise, and backward.”

  “Then let’s start in the middle of one,” Concera said with unexpected levity.

  As Killashandra really could rehearse claims and counterclaims as well as she boasted, she could also let her mind deal with her biggest problems: how to get her sled, how to get Lanzecki’s attention and obtain clearance to cut crystal rather than chant about it. With the prodigious Passover storms looming only nine weeks off, she had to speed up. Research in the data banks about post-Passover problems indicated that it would be weeks before a new Singer would be permitted to claim hunt in ranges made more dangerous than ever by the ravages of Passover. Keborgen’s claim could be so altered that her sensitivity to his black crystal might be nullified. Mach storms could damage or substantially alter an exposed crystal face, flawing deep into the vein and rendering it useless. She had to get out soon.

  Lanzecki had been in the habit, over the preceding two weeks, of appearing as if teleported, generally when Killashandra was retuning crystal under Trag’s scrutiny. Once Lanzecki had sat in the observer’s seat of the sled simulator while she flew a particularly hazardous course. Instead of making her nervous, his presence had made her fly with heightened perception. Lanzecki also roamed through the Commons in the evenings, stopping for a word with this or that group, sorter, or technician. Now, when she very much wished him to materialize, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

  The fourth day, she casually asked Concera if she’d encountered the Guild Master and was told that Trag would know better where to find him. Trag was not the easiest person to question or converse with at all except in the handling of cutter or about incisions into crystal. Gathering all her self-assurance, Killashandra resorted to stratagem on the sixth day.

  Trag had her shaving cones: she had ruined three the day before and quite expected to spend the morning’s lesson avoiding future failures. After she had made a cut, she would look behind her. The fourth time, Trag frowned.

  “Your attention span has been longer. What’s the matter?”

  “I keep thinking the Guild Master will appear. He does, you know, when I least expect it.”

  “He’s on Shankill. Attend to your business.”

  She did, with less enthusiasm than ever, deeply grateful that the morrow was a rest day. She had half promised to spend that evening and the next day with Rimbol: half promised because her urgency to reach the ranges was in no way shared by the young Scartine. Trag released her at the end of the gruelingly precise session, his impassive face giving her no indication that she
had learned to cut cones properly, though she felt in every muscle of her aching hands that she had achieved some proficiency.

  She considered a radiant bath before the afternoon’s flight practice. Instead, she put in a call for Rimbol: his company would be a soothing anodyne for her increasing frustration. Waiting for his answer, she had a quick hot shower. She paced her apartment, wondering where in hell’s planets Rimbol had got to. Her mealtime was nearly gone, and she hadn’t eaten. She ordered a quick meal from the catering unit, bolting the hot food, adding a seared mouth to her catalog of grievances before she went to the hangar level.

  She was now one of many using the sled simulator so she had to be on time. She knew the flight was only an hour long, but this one, a complicated wind and night problem that kept her preternaturally alert and made her wish she’d taken the radiant bath instead of the shower, seemed endless. She was very pleased to avoid several crashes and emerge unscathed from the simulator. She waved impudently at the flight training officer in his booth above the sled and passed the next student, Jezerey, on her way.

  “He’s either crash happy or he hates me,” Killashandra commented to Jezerey.

  “Him? He’s crazy. He killed me three times yesterday.”

  “Kill or cure?”

  “That’s the Guild’s motto, isn’t it?” Jezerey replied sourly.

  Killashandra watched the girl enter the simulator, wondering. She hadn’t been killed yet. She thought of going to the ready room and watching Jezerey’s flight. No one else was in the ready room, so she dialed a carbohydrate drink to give her blood sugar level a boost. She was watching Jezerey take off when she became conscious of someone in the doorway. She turned and saw the Guild Master.

  “I understand you’ve been looking for me,” he said to compound her astonishment.