Crystal Singer

by Anne McCaffrey

  A wistful quality in that last remark made Killashandra change her reply.

  “They used to say at Fuerte that I’d have been a good comic singer if I hadn’t been so hipped on leads.”

  “I find nothing comic about you, Killashandra,” he said, his eyes sparkling as he held out his hand.

  “Dramatic?”

  “Unexpected.”

  He took the hand she had unconsciously extended, caressing the palm with the ball of his thumb before turning her hand over and dropping a kiss in it.

  She caught her breath at the spread of sensation from her palm through her body to the nipples on her breasts. She wanted to snatch her hand from his but saw the tender smile on his lips as he raised his head. Lanzecki had his eyes and face under control; his mouth betrayed him.

  The pressure he exerted on her hand to draw her to him was as inexorable as it was gently and deftly done. With her across his thighs, her body against his, and her head in the crook of his arm, he brought her hand again to his mouth, and she closed her eyes at the sensuality of that delicate kiss. Her hand was placed palm down against warm skin, and she felt him stroke her hair, letting one curl wrap round his finger before he dropped his hand to her breast, lightly and with skill.

  “Killashandra Ree?” His low whisper asked a question that had nothing to do with her name but everything that pertained to who she was.

  “Lanzecki!”

  His mouth covered hers in so light a caress that she was at first unaware of being kissed. It was so with the rest of her first experience with the Guild Master, a loving and sharing that paled into insignificance any other encounter.

  CHAPTER 8

  When she gradually awakened the next morning, she found his fingers lightly clasping her upturned hand. Her slight movement of surprise caused his fingers to tighten, then caress. Opening her eyes, she turned her head toward him, to meet his eyes, sleepily narrow. They were lying, she on her back, he on his stomach, stretched out, the only point of contact the two hands, yet Killashandra felt that her every muscle and nerve was in tune to him and his to her. She blinked and sighed. Lanzecki smiled, his lips relaxed and full. His smile deepened, as if he knew of her fascination with his mouth. He rolled to his back, still holding her right hand, now pulling it up to kiss the palm. She closed her eyes against the incredible sensation the lightest touch of his lips created within her.

  Then she noticed the fine white lines across his bare arm and chest, parallel in some places, criss-crossed in others.

  “I believe I mentioned that I sang crystal,” he said.

  “Cut crystal would be nearer the truth from the look of you,” she said, raising her upper body to see the rest of his well-muscled torso. Then she frowned. “How do you know so accurately what I’m thinking? No one mentioned a telepathic adaptation to the spore.”

  “There is none, dearling. I have merely become adept at reading expressions and body language over the decades.”

  “Is that why you’re Guild Master instead of Singer?” She had heard, and savored, the endearment.

  “There must be a Guild Master.”

  “Trag would never make it.”

  “Now who is telepathic?”

  “Well, you’d better watch your mouth.”

  “My mouth said nothing about Trag’s future.”

  “It didn’t have to. So, are recruits deliberately selected?”

  His mouth gave nothing away to her. “Where did you get that idea, Killashandra Ree?” His eyes were laughing, denying her remembrance of Borella’s conversation to the other Singer on the shuttle from Shankill.

  “The notion had occurred to me from the pounds of prevention FSP applies to keep people from joining the Guild.”

  “The FSP”—and Lanzecki’s mouth drew into a thinner line—“is also, the largest purchaser of crystal. Especially black crystal.” He rolled back to her, his eyes on her mouth. “This is my rest day, too. I earnestly desire to relax in your good company.” He was indeed as earnest as she could have wished and exceedingly obliging. While they paused to eat, she asked him how they had moved from his office suite to his apartment on the Singer level.

  “Private lift.” He gave a careless shrug of his cicatriced shoulders as he sought morsels of food in the rich spicy sauce. “One of my perquisites.”

  “Is that how you do your appearing act?”

  Lanzecki grinned at her, delighted in an unexpectedly boyish way—that put her guiltily in mind of Rimbol—that he had disconcerted her.

  “I often have need to ‘appear’ unexpectedly.”

  “Why?”

  “In your case?” His smile altered slightly, his lips taking a bitter twist. “Serendipity. I liked your misplaced loyalty to Carrik. I wished you well away from the Scoria system. Once you passed the entrance requirements, you became my responsibility.”

  “Isn’t everyone in the Guild?”

  “More or less. But you, Killashandra Ree, had a Milekey transition.”

  “You do this every time? . . .” She was piqued by his candor and gestured with all the contempt of an outraged opera heroine around the bedroom.

  “Of course not,” he said with a burst of laughter. He caught her hand and kissed her palm with the usual effect, despite her indignation. “This is not one of my perks, dearling. It is a privilege you have granted me. I did—and have no doubts on that score for the duration of your memory—want to know you before you went into the ranges.”

  “Before?” She caught that subtle emphasis.

  He made an untidy pile of their dishes and shoved them into the disposal slot.

  “Before singing crystal has stung your blood.”

  He turned back, and she could see the sadness in the droop of his mouth.

  “But you’ve sung crystal?”

  He put both hands on her shoulders, looking down at her. There was no expression in his eyes; the planes of his face were still, the line of his mouth uncompromising.

  “Do you mean that after I have sung, I won’t be any good. Or any more good to you?” She flung the options at him.

  Instead of repudiating either, he caught her resisting body up in his arms, laughing as he swung her around and around, tight against him.

  “My darling, I shall make love to you until tomorrow morning when I shall . . . shepherd . . . you to your sled and to Moksoon. You shall endeavor your best, once Moksoon has demonstrated the Cutter’s art on an actual face, to find Keborgen’s claim. When you return from your first trip”—and he gave an enigmatic laugh—“I shall still be Guild Master. But you”—and here he kissed her—“will be truly a Crystal Singer.”

  He did not let her speak then; nor did they return to the subject of their occupations.

  The following morning, Lanzecki was completely the Guild Master when she met him and the petulant Moksoon in the flight officer’s ready room. She had been out in the hangar checking her sled, putting her cutter in its brackets with a loving snap, aware of the acrid, chemical tang of new plastic and metal from the run-in of the drive.

  Moksoon was not Killashandra’s notion of a shepherd for her first trip into the dangerous Milekeys. That he was as dubious about her was unmistakable in the sidelong glances he gave her. A slightly built man who had probably always had a wizened appearance to his face, he looked old, odd enough in a Crystal Singer. He also looked thoroughly annoyed, for the maintenance officer was suavely explaining why it had taken so long to repair his sled. Since Lanzecki had explained to her that Moksoon’s most important qualification as her guide was that he was known to be cutting in the Bay area, Killashandra knew that the delay had been contrived.

  “Remember, of course, Moksoon, that the bonus alone sees you safely off-planet,” Lanzecki said, deftly entering the conversation. “This is Killashandra Ree. Master recorder on! Moksoon, this will be on continuous replay in your cabin. You are shepherding Killashandra Ree in accordance with Section 53, Paragraphs one through five. She is cognizant of the fact that she is ent
itled to nothing that she may cut under your direction at your claim. She is entitled to stay with you two working days when she will depart to seek a claim of her own. She will never make any attempt to return to your claim under Section 49, Paragraphs 7, 9, and 14. Killashandra Ree, do you . . .” And Killashandra found herself repeating, affirming, avowing, under the strict penalties imposed by the Heptite Guild that she would obey the strictures of the two sections and the paragraphs cited. Moksoon was also required to repeat his willingness, which was forced, above and beyond the bonus offered, to instruct her in the cutting of crystal for the two-day period as allowed by Guild rules and regulations.

  Moksoon’s repetition was so marred by lapses into silence and prompts from Lanzecki and the flight officer that Killashandra had half a mind to revoke her contract. Lanzecki caught her eye, and her rebellion ended.

  The official recording made, replicas were patched into the communications units of both sleds. The flight officer escorted Moksoon to his vehicle, slightly canted to the left and battered in spite of fresh paint that attempted to blend the most recent repairs into the older dings. Lanzecki strode beside Killashandra to her brand new sled.

  “Use the replay whenever he falters. Your switch is rigged to activate his.”

  “Are you sure that Moksoon is the right—”

  “For your purpose, Killashandra, the only one.” Lanzecki’s tone allowed no argument. “Just don’t trust him about anything. He’s cut crystal too long and sung too long alone.”

  “Then why—” Now Killashandra was totally exasperated.

  Lanzecki cupped her elbow and half lifted her into her sled.

  “His hands will automatically do what you need to see. Watch how he cuts, what he does, not what he says. Heed your inner warnings. Watch your met report as often as you think of it. Fortunately, you’ll think of it often enough the first trip out. Passover’s in seven weeks. Storms can blow up days before the actual conjunction. Yes, I know you know all this, but it bears repeating. He’s in and belted. No time now. Follow him. The charts of the Bay area have been put on instant review. Be sure to pack crystal as soon as you have cut, Killashandra!”

  He had smoothly engineered her departure, Killashandra thought, giving her no time for regrets and none for personal farewell. Yesterday, she reminded herself, he had been Lanzecki the man. Today he was Guild Master. Fair enough.

  Moksoon took off just as she switched on her sled’s drive. His craft canted even in the air, a distinctive silhouette, like that of a person with one shoulder higher than the other. Despite her severe doubts about Moksoon, Killashandra experienced a rush of elation as she drifted her sled from the hangar. She was going to cut crystal at last. At last? She was first out of Class 895. She thought of Rimbol and grimaced. She ought at least to have left a call for him, explaining her absence. Then she remembered that she had placed a call to him that hadn’t been answered. That could suffice!

  Bollux, but that fool Moksoon was running like a scared mushman! She increased the speed of her sled, closing to a proper following distance. In a peculiar change of direction, Moksoon now headed due north and dropped to a lower altitude, skimming the first folds of the Milekey Range. As she was above him, she caught his second, easterly shift, and then he disappeared over a high fold. She decelerated to a near hover, scanning both ends of the drop as she approached it. He was hovering on the north end of the fault. She caught the merest glint of sunlight on the orange of his sled, then flew on to the next ravine as if she hadn’t spotted him and mimicked his tactics until he showed at the southern edge, just as she’d expected.

  “Twithead’s forgotten I’m supposed to follow him,” she said, and slapped on the replay. The one in his sled would project its message. She sighed deeply, resigned to a long and difficult day, but suddenly his sled popped up into sight, and Moksoon made no immediate attempt to evade her.

  She checked his new heading, south at four, which was an honest direction for Moksoon’s eventual destination. She wondered how long she could trust the reinforcement of the replay. A direct flight would get them to the Bay area in two hours at the reasonable speed Moksoon was maintaining. She might not know where he was leading her, but she had the advantage over him in a new sled capable of speed and maneuverability.

  Even on a direct course, Moksoon was an erratic flyer. There shouldn’t have been thermals or violent air currents at his level, but his sled bounced and lolled. Was he trying to make her air sick following?

  Why had Lanzecki chosen this man? Because of his faulty memory? Because, once Moksoon had achieved his desired trip off-planet, he would not, in the fashion of Crystal Singers of long service, remember that he had shepherded one Killashandra Ree into the Bay’s range. Well, that was logical of Lanzecki, provided she could also find Keborgen’s claim. Before the others who were looking for it. Patently, Lanzecki was backing her.

  “Once a Singer has cut a certain face, she only needs to be in its general area and she’ll feel the pull of the sound,” Concera had said. “Your augmented vision will assist in distinguishing the color of crystal beneath storm film, base rock, and flaw. Catch the sun at the right angle and crystal cuttings are blindingly clear.”

  Phrases and advice flooded through Killashandra’s mind, but as she looked down at the undulating folds of the Milekey Ranges, she entertained serious doubts that she would ever find anything in such a homogeneous land. Kilometers in all directions flowed in similar patterns of fold, ridge, valley, gorge.

  A sudden stab of piercing light made her clutch the yoke of the sled to steady herself. She peered down and saw an orange slice of sled top, half hidden by an overhang and deep in the ravine, only its luminescent paint and her altitude disclosing it. On the highest of the surrounding ridges was the splash of paint indicating a claim.

  That crystal flash, as unlikely as everything else that had been happening to her recently, confirmed that some of the other improbables might also be true on Ballybran.

  Fardles! Where had Moksoon got to? During her brief inattention, the old Singer’s orange sled had slipped from view. She speeded up and caught a glimpse of the orange stern winding through a deep ravine. Without changing altitude, she matched pace with his cautious forward movement, her viewscreen on magnify. Since she had his sled well in view, she did not reactivate the tape. He might just as easily slam into one of the odd stone buttresses that lined the canyon if she startled him.

  She checked the heading; Moksoon had gone north by 11. Suddenly, he oozed up and over a ridge, down into a deeper, shadowed valley. She dove, noting quickly that the deep went south. Unless he flipped over the intervening fold, Moksoon would have to follow the southerly course. That gorge continued in its erratic fashion stubbornly south by 4. She couldn’t see Moksoon in the shadows, but there was no place else he could be.

  The long winding of the gorge ended in a blockage of debris, the erosion of a higher anticline. There was no sign of Moksoon. He had to be in the gorge, hiding in shadow. Then she saw the faded claim blaze on a ridge. Even in Ballybran’s climate, the stuff was supposed to take decades to deteriorate so much. A released claim always had the piss-green countermark—not that she’d seen any of those during her pursuit of Moksoon.

  Cautiously, she guided her sled down the rock slide and into the gorge. In some places, the sides nearly met; in others, she had a view of ranges folding beyond. Something glinted in the little sunlight that penetrated. She increased the magnification and was surprised to see a thin stream meandering the base of the gorge. There had been no lake at the blocked point, so she assumed that the little stream went underground in its search for an outlet to the Bay.

  She was beginning to feel anxious when an oxbend revealed a wider valley; the orange sled was parked on the right, on a shadowed ledge that would have been invisible from all except a direct search of this particular canyon.

  She keyed the replay and turned up the volume so that Lanzecki’s voice was echoing off the rock walls as Moksoo
n slipped and slid toward her, the crystal cutter held safely above his head.

  “Claim jumper! Claim jumper!” he shrieked, stumbling to the ledge on which she had rested her sled. He turned on the cutter, held it well in front of him, as he approached her sled door.

  “In accordance with Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5 . . .” the replay roared.

  “Lanzecki? He’s with you?” Moksoon glanced wildly around and above him, searching for another sled.

  “Playback,” Killashandra yelled through Lanzecki’s amplified words. “I’m not claim jumping. You’re shepherding me. You get a bonus.” She used her voice training to shoot her message through the pauses in the recording.

  “That’s me!” Moksoon pointed accusingly at her sled from which his own hesitant voice emanated.

  “Yes, you made the tape this morning. You promised to shepherd me for the bonus.”

  “Bonus!” Moksoon lowered the cutter, though Killashandra adroitly maneuvered herself farther from its point.

  “Yes, bonus, according to Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5. Remember?”

  “Yes, I do.” Moksoon didn’t sound all that certain. “That’s you speaking now.”

  “Yes, promising to abide by Section 49, Paragraphs 7, 9 and 14. I’m to stay with you two days only, to watch an expert cut crystal. Lanzecki recommended you so highly. One of the best.”

  “That Lanzecki! All he wants is cut crystal.” Moksoon snorted in sulky condemnation.

  “This time you’ll have a bonus to get you off-world.”

  The cutter pointed down now, the fingers of the tired old man so slack on the grip, Killashandra hoped he wouldn’t drop it. She’d been told often enough how easily the wretchedly expensive things damaged.

  “I gotta get off Ballybran. I gotta. That’s why I said I’d shepherd.” Head bent, Moksoon was talking to himself now, ignoring the replayed affirmations.

  Suddenly, he swung the tip of his cutter up and advanced towards her menacingly. Killashandra scooted back as far as she could on the ledge.