Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  She drank eagerly, both hands on the glass because she was still shaky. The cool tartness was soothing, though, and she wordlessly held the glass out for a refill. Biyanco's eyes were kind and somewhat anxious. Somehow he could appreciate what unbalanced crystalline shrieks could do to sensitive nerves.

  "You've not been harmed by it, have you?"

  "No. No, Biyanco. We're tougher than that. It was the surprise. I wasn't expecting you to have crystal-driven equipment . . ."

  He grinned slyly. "We're not backward on Armagh, for all we're quiet and peaceful." He leaned back from her, regarding her with fresh interest. "Is it true that crystal singers don't grow old?"

  "There're disadvantages to that, my friend."

  He raised his eyebrows in polite contradiction. But she only smiled as she steadily sipped the harmat until all trace of pain had eased.

  "You told me you've only a certain time to process ripe fruit. If you'll let me take the tractor down the rails past the first turn—No . . ." She vetoed her own suggestion, arriving at an impulsive alternative. "How long do you have left before the pick sours?"

  "Three hours." And in Biyanco's widening eyes she saw incredulous gratitude as he understood her intention. "You wouldn't?" he asked in a voiceless whisper.

  "I could and I would. That is, if you've the tools I need."

  "I've tools." As if afraid she would renege, he propelled her toward the machine shed.

  He had what she needed, but the bare minimum. Fortunately, the all-important crystal saw was still very sharp and true. With two pairs of knowledgeable hands—Biyanco, he had told her, had put the driver together himself when he had updated the plant's machinery thirty years before—it was no trick at all to get down to the crystals.

  "They're in thirds," he told her needlessly.

  "Pitch?"

  "B-flat minor."

  "Minor? For heavy work like this?"

  "Minor because it isn't that continuous a load and minors don't cost what majors do," Biyanco replied crisply.

  Killashandra nodded. Majors would be far too expensive for a brewman, however successful, on a tertiary fishing world. She hit the B-flat, and that piece of crystal hummed sweetly in tune. So did the D. It was the E that was sour—off by a halftone. She cut off the resonance before the sound did more than ruffle her nerves. With Biyanco carefully assisting her, she freed the crystal of its brackets, cradling it tenderly in her hands. It was a blue, from the Ghanghe Range, more than likely, and old, because the blues were worked out there now.

  "The break's in the top of the prism, here," she said, tracing the flaw. "The bracket may have shifted with vibration."

  "G'delpme, I weighed those brackets and felted them proper . . ."

  "No blame to you, Biyanco. Probably the expansion coefficient differs in this rain forest enough to make even properly set felt slip. Thirty years they've been in? You worked well. Wish more people would take such good care of their crystal."

  "That'd mean less call for crystal, bring the price down, wouldn't it?"

  Killa laughed, shaking her head. "The Guild keeps finding new ways to use crystal. Singers'll never be out of work."

  They decided to shift pitch down, which meant she had to recut all three crystals, but that way he would have a major triad. Because she trusted him, she let him watch as she cut and tuned. She had to sustain pitch with her voice after she had warmed them enough to sing, but she could hold a true pitch long enough to place the initial, and all-important, cuts.

  It was wringing-wet work, even with the best of equipment and in a moderate climate. She was exhausted by the time they reset the felted brackets. In fact, Biyanco elbowed her out of the way when he saw how her hands were trembling.

  "Just check me," he said but she didn't need to. He was spry in more than one way. She was glad she had tuned the crystals for him. But he was too old for her.

  She felt better when he started the processor again and there was no crystal torment.

  "You get some rest, Killashandra. This'll take a couple more hours. Why don't you stretch out on the tractor van seat? It's wide enough. That way you can rest all the way back to Trefoil."

  "And yourself, Biyanco?"

  He grinned like the old black imp he was. "I'm maybe a shade younger than you, Crystal Singer Killashandra. But we'll never know, will we?"

  She slept, enervated by the pitching and cutting, but she woke when Biyanco opened the float door. The hinge squeaked in C-sharp.

  "Good press," he said when he saw she was awake. Behind, in the lorries, the weary climbers chanted to themselves. One was a monotone. Fortunately they reached the village before the sound could get on her nerves. The lorries were detached, and the climbers melted into the darkness. Biyanco and Killashandra continued on the acid road back to Trefoil.

  It was close to dawn before they pulled up at the Golden Dolphin.

  "Killashandra?"

  "Yes, Biyanco?"

  "I'm in your debt."

  "No, for we exchanged favors."

  He made a rude noise. And she smiled at him. "We did. But, if you need a price, Biyanco, then it's your silence on the subject of crystal singers."

  "Why?"

  "Because I'm human, no matter what you've heard of us. And I must have that humanity on equal terms or I'll shatter one day among the crystal. It's why we have to go off-world."

  "You don't lure men back to Ballybran?"

  "Would you come with me to Ballybran?"

  He snorted. "You can't make harmat on Ballybran."

  She laughed, for he had given the right answer to ease his own mind. As the tract-float moved off slowly, she wondered if he had ever heard of Yarran beer. A chilled one would go down a treat right now.

  She slept the sun around and woke the second dawn refreshed. She lazed in the water, having been told by the pug-nosed host that the lunk ships were still out. Biyanco greeted her that noonday with pleasantries and no references to favors past, present or future. He was old enough, that brewman, she thought, to know what not to say.

  She wondered if she should leave Trefoil and flit around the planet. There would be other ports to visit, other fishermen to snare in the net of her attraction. One of them might be strong enough– must be strong enough—to melt the crystal in her. But she tarried and drank harmat all afternoon until Biyanco made her go eat something.

  She knew the lunk boats were in even before the parched seamen came thronging up the beach road, chanting their need. She helped Biyanco draw glasses against their demand, laughing at their surprise to see her working behind the bar. Only Shad Tucker seemed unamazed.

  Orric was there, too, with Tir Od Nell, teasing her as men have teased barmaids for centuries. Tucker sat on a stool in the corner of the bar and watched her, though he drank a good deal of harmat to "unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth".

  Biyanco made them all stop drinking for a meal, to lay a foundation for more harmat, he said. And when they came back, they brought a squeeze box, a fiddle, two guitars, and a flute. The tables were stacked against the wall, and the music and dancing began.

  It was good music, too, true-pitched so Killashandra could enjoy it, tapping her foot in time. And it went on until the musicians pleaded for a respite and, leaving their instruments on the bar, swept out to the cool evening beach to get a second wind.

  Killashandra had been dancing as hot and heavy as any woman, partnered with anyone who felt like dancing, including Biyanco. Everyone except Tucker, who stayed in his corner and watched . . . her.

  When the others left to cool off, she wandered over to him. His eyes were a brighter blue in the new red-tan of his face. He was picking his hands now and again because the last of the lunks had an acid in their scales that ate flesh, and he'd had to grab some barehanded at the last.

  "Will they heal?" she asked.

  "Oh, sure. Be dry tomorrow. New skin in a week. Doesn't hurt." Shad looked at his hands impersonally and then went on absently sloughing off the d
rying skin.

  "You weren't dancing."

  The shy grin twisted up one corner of his mouth, and he ducked his head a little, looking at her from the side of his eyes.

  "I've done my dancing. With the fish the past days. I prefer to watch, anyhow."

  He unwound himself from the stool to reach out and secure the nearest guitar. He picked a chord and winced; he didn't see her shudder at the discord. Lightly he plucked the strings, twisting the tuning knob on the soured G, adjusting the E string slightly, striking the chord again and nodding with approval.

  Killashandra blinked. The man had perfect pitch.

  He began to play, softly, with a style totally different from the raucous tempi of the previous musicians. His picking was intricate and his rhythm sophisticated, yet the result was a delicate shifting of pattern and tone that enchanted Killashandra. It was improvisation at its best, with the player as intent upon the melody he produced as his only audience.

  The beauty of his playing, the beauty of his face as he played, struck an aching in her bones. When his playing ceased, she felt empty.

  She had been leaning toward him, perched on a stool, elbows on her knees, supporting her chin with cradled hands. So he leaned forward, across the guitar, and kissed her gently on the mouth. They rose, as one, Shad putting the guitar aside to fold her in his arms and kiss her deeply. She felt the silk of his bare flesh beneath her hands, the warmth of his strong body against hers and then . . . The others came pouring back with disruptive noise.

  As well, thought Killashandra, as Orric boisterously swung her up to the beat of a rough dance. When next she looked over her shoulder, Shad was in his corner, watching, the slight smile on his lips, his eyes still on her.

  He is very much too young for me, she told herself, and I am brittle with too much living.

  The next day she nursed what must have been her first hangover in a century. She had worked hard enough to acquire one. She lay on the beach in the shade and tried not to move unnecessarily. No one bothered her until midday—presumably everyone else was nursing a hangover as well. Then Shad's big feet stopped on the sand beside her pallet. His knees cracked as he bent over her and his compelling hand tipped back the wide hat she wore against sun glare.

  "You'll feel better if you eat this," he said, speaking very softly. He held out a small tray with a frosted glass and a plate of fruit chips on it.

  She wondered if he were enunciating with extra care, for she understood every soft word, even if she resented the gist of them. She groaned, and he repeated his advice. Then he put gentle hands on her, raising her torso so she could drink without spilling. He fed her, piece by piece, as a man feeds a sick and fretful child.

  She felt sick and she was fretful, but when all the food and drink were in her belly, she had to admit that his advice was sound.

  "I never get drunk."

  "Probably not. But you also don't dance yourself bloody-footed either."

  Her feet were tender, come to think of it, and when she examined the soles, she discovered blisters and myriad thin scratches.

  Tucker sat with her all afternoon, saying little. When he suggested a swim, she complied. The lagoon water was cooler than she had remembered, or maybe she was hotter for all she had been lying in the shade.

  When they emerged from the water, she felt human, even for a crystal singer. And she admired his straight tall body, the easy grace of his carriage, and the fineness of his handsome face. But he was much too young for her. She would have to try Orric, for she needed a man's favors again.

  Evidently it was not Shad's intention that she find Orric: he persuaded her that she didn't want to eat in the hostelry; that it would be more fun to dig bivalves where the tide was going out, in a cove he knew of, a short walk away. It is difficult to argue with a soft-spoken man, who was taller than she by several centimeters, and could carry her easily under one arm . . . even if he was a century or so younger.

  And it was impossible not to touch his silky flesh when he brushed past her to tend the baking shellfish, or when he passed her wine-steeped fruit chips and steamed roots.

  When he looked at her, sideways, his blue eyes darker now, reflecting the fire and the night, it was beyond her to resist his subtle importunities.

  She woke on the dark beach, before the dying fire, with his sleeping weight against her side. Her arms were wrapped around his right arm, her head cradled in the cup of his shoulder. Without moving her head, she could see his profile. And she knew there wasn't any crystal in her soul. She could still give, and receive. For all she sang crystal, she still possessed that priceless human quality, annealed in the fire of his youth.

  She had been wrong to dismiss him for what was a mere chronological accident, irrelevant to the peace and solace he brought her. Her body was exultant, renewed.

  Her stretching roused him to smile with unexpected sweetness into her eyes. He gathered her against him, the vibrant strength of his arms tempered to tenderness for her slighter frame.

  "You crazy woman," he said, in a wondering voice, as he lightly scrubbed her scalp with his long fingers and played with her fine hair. "I've never met anyone like you before."

  "Not likely to again." Please!

  He grinned down at her, delighted by her arrogance.

  "Do you travel much?" he asked.

  "When the mood strikes me."

  "Don't travel for a while."

  "I'll have to one day. I've got to go back to work, you know."

  "What work?"

  "I'm a guild member."

  His grin broadened and he hugged her. "All right, I won't pry." His finger delicately traced the line of her jaw. "You can't be as old as you make out," he said. She had been honest enough earlier to tell him they were not contemporary.

  She answered him with a laugh, but his comment brought a chill to her. It couldn't have been an accident that he could relieve her, she thought, caressing his curving thigh. She panicked suddenly at the idea that, once she had tasted, she could not drink again and strained herself to him.

  His arms tightened and his low laugh was loving to her ears. And their bodies fit together again as fully and sweetly in harmony as before. Yes, with Shad Tucker, she could dismiss all fear as baseless.

  Their pairing-off was accepted by Orric and Tir, who had his ready credit now and was off to apply it to whatever end he'd had in mind. Only Biyanco had searched her face, and she had shrugged and given the brewman a little reassuring smile. Then he had peered closely at Shad and smiled back.

  That was why he said nothing. As she had known he wouldn't. For Shad Tucker wasn't ready to settle on one woman. Killashandra was an adventure to him, a willing companion for a man just finished with a hard season's work.

  They spent the days together as well, exploring the coastline in both directions from Trefoil, for Shad had a mind to put his earnings in land or seafront. She had never felt so . . . so vital and alive. He had a guitar of his own that he would bring, playing for hours little tunes he made up when they were becalmed in his small sloop and had to take shelter from Armagh's biting noonday sun in the shade of the sail. She loved to look at him while he played: his absorption had the quality of an innocent boy discovering major Truths of Beauty, Music, and Love. Indeed, his face, when he caressed her to a fever pitch of love, retained that same youthful innocence and intent concentration. Because he was so strong, because his youth was so powerful, his delicate, restrained lovemaking was all the more surprising to her.

  The days multiplied and became weeks, but so deep was her contentment that the first twinge of uneasiness caught her unawares. She knew what it was, though: her body's cry for crystal song.

  "Did I hurt you?" Shad asked, for she was in his arms.

  She couldn't answer, so she shook her head. He began to kiss her slowly, leisurely, sure of himself. She felt the second brutal knock along her spine and twisted herself closer in his arms so he wouldn't feel it and she could forget it had happened.

&nb
sp; "What's wrong, Killa?"

  "Nothing. Nothing you can't cure."

  So he did. But afterward, she couldn't sleep and stared up at the spinning moons. She couldn't leave Shad now. Time and again he had worked his magic with her, until she would have sworn all crystal thought was purged . . . until she had even toyed with the notion of resigning from the Guild. No one ever had, according to the Rules and Regs she had reviewed over and over. No one ever had, but likely no one had wanted to. When she had to have crystal, she could tune sour crystal. There was always a need for that service, anywhere, on any world. But she had to stay with Shad. He held back fear; he brought her peace. She had waited for a love like Shad Tucker for so long, she had the right to enjoy the relationship.

  The next moment another spasm struck her, hard, sharp, fierce. She fought it through a body arched with pain. And she knew that she was being inexorably drawn back. And she did not want to leave Shad Tucker.

  To him, she was a novelty, a woman to make love to—now—when the lunk season had been good and a man needed to relax. But Killashandra was not the sort of woman he would build a home for on his acres of seafront. On her part, she loved him: for his youth, for his absurd gentleness and courtesy; because, in his arms, she was briefly ageless.

  The profound cruelty of her situation was driven home to her mind as bitterly as the next hunger pain for crystal sound.

  It isn't fair, she cried piteously. It isn't fair. I can't love him. It isn't fair. He's too young. He'll forget me in other loves. And I—I'll not be able to remember him. That was the cruelest part.

  She began to cry, Killashandra who had forsworn tears for any man half a century before, when the harmony between herself and Lars Dahl had turned chaotic. Her weeping, soft as it was, woke Shad. He comforted her lovingly and complicated her feelings for him by asking no questions at all. Maybe, she thought with the desperation of fearful hope, he isn't that young. He might want to remember me.