Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Eeny, meeny, pitsa teeny,” and Lars aimed the sled sou’sou’east to a narrow gorge with high walls on the north side. There was a V-shaped notch in the eastern lip. “That looks familiar.”

  “It’s a cut all right.” She had both their cutters un-racked before Lars landed the sled, and pausing only long enough to grab a water bottle, she half ran to the fracture, slipping on old shards to reach the site. “It’s the black, Lars, it’s the black!”

  Depression lifted from her, and she even remembered to be cautious as she climbed to the top of the shelf. Lars sang out a fine strong C, and she could feel the crystal’s response even through the thick soles of her boots. She cut the first shaft, then struggled with Lars when he had to wrest it out of her hands, for it thralled her as black crystal usually did. She was weeping when she saw him nestle the black in the padded crate. He slapped her hard, three times across the face, and she leaned against him, grateful.

  “It’s all right, Sunny. It’s all right,” he murmured, caressing her hair briefly. “Now, let’s cut. For Lanzecki. He did like to see us bring in the blacks.”

  “Yeah, but he’s not going to make me link ’em! No way will he talk me into linking again!”

  She was figuring where to cut next, and how many they could get out of this fine black crystal, so she didn’t see the peculiar way Lars looked at her.

  * * *

  Clodine gave them top market price on their five crates of black. There was enough for two planetary systems—if any could afford the price of black-crystal comunits—and some nice single pieces that might just chord into current installations as auxiliaries. Clodine was full of praise for their work.

  “No one cuts the way you two do. I didn’t realize singers could be so individual, but you are, you know,” she said, slightly shy with embarrassment but sincere in her compliment.

  “Where’ll we go, Lars?” Killashandra asked. “I think it’s your choice.”

  “I think you’re right,” he replied, laughing. He was himself again, she knew, but she didn’t know why she thought he hadn’t been.

  Back in their quarters, as usual she plunged directly into the tub while he updated his file.

  “That didn’t take you long,” she said. It seemed only a few moments before he came into the room. Usually an update took him a quarter of an hour.

  Still clothed, he was looking in a puzzled fashion at a printout. He held it so she could see the message.

  “Report to Conference? What does Lanzecki want you to do now?” She hauled at his hand. “You’ve got to bathe first. We reek!” She laughed because the smell of him could always arouse her no matter how rank he was.

  “Lanzecki?” He sighed, his eyes sad, and she wondered what was wrong. “I’d better go find out. This message is several days old.”

  “He can wait. He has before.”

  Lars peeled off the perspiration-stained and crystal-sliced overall. “I’ll shower. I’ll be back as soon as I know what this means.” He crumbled the message in a wad and lobbed it at the recycler.

  “Oh, Lars! We’ve got to make plans …”

  “You start. Just find us a water world that we haven’t been to, Sunny,” he said, but she sensed his tone was forced.

  And so it would be, being required to report so immediately to Lanzecki after a month in the Ranges. Hot summer, at that. It would take several long baths to cleanse her skin of accumulated sweat and dust. Far-dies, how she hated Ballybran in the summer. Even her hair had been baked off her head; she fingered the inch-short strands. No, the memory surfaced: they had cut each other’s hair scalp-close at one point because they had been so hot and their hair so filthy.

  She sank to her chin; the radiant fluid was heavy against her skin, drawing out the vibrations that seemed to throb in every pore. She was tired. She didn’t know how Lars was finding the energy to answer Lanzecki’s summons. She did remember to pull the shoulder harness from its alcove and get her arms through it. That way, if she did fall asleep, she wouldn’t slip beneath the fluid. A singer could drown that way. She had too much awareness of danger to fall into that trap the way … She paused, unable to remember who it was who had been in danger.

  She was just beginning to feel clean when Lars came swinging into the bathroom. He stood for a moment on the threshold, taking her in, and then began the grin she knew too well meant he was about to say something he knew she wouldn’t like.

  “There’s a terminal patient waiting escort at Shankill, Killa,” he said, drawling the words out.

  She groaned. “And you volunteered? Why does Lanzecki always pick on us?”

  He pointed his index finger at her, lifting his eyebrows and grinning rather sheepishly, and she groaned again.

  “He picked me again?”

  An odd expression flashed across Lars’s face, and his brows leveled again. “I picked you.” He strode over to the bath, hooking a towel in one hand as he passed the rack. He held it up to her. “This is a real bad one. She wasn’t diagnosed properly and the symbiont is the only chance she has.”

  Killashandra heaved herself out of the bath, ignoring the entreaty in his eyes and the set of his lips. She stalked to the shower stall, the radiant fluid sleeting off her body with every step. She turned the water shower on full blast. From the curtain of water she glared at him, turning slowly to be sure the fluid rinsed off completely. Slamming the lever in the opposite direction, she deigned to take the towel from his hand. And sighed.

  “Does Lanzecki need singers so badly he’ll recruit the moribund?” she asked flippantly, drying herself, deliberately making the actions sensual. Catching that same odd expression on her partner’s face, she realized that dalliance was the last thing on his mind just then.

  “She hails from a planet named Fuerte. I thought you’d be the best representative the Guild could send.”

  She caught the slight emphasis of the personal pronoun. A second flippant remark was on her lips when she sensed that Lars really wanted her to take this assignment.

  “Shuttle’s waiting, Killa,” he said gently. “She doesn’t have much time.”

  “Shards! Why me?” She flipped the towel away, examining her body. “I don’t even have a recent scar to show off. I couldn’t prove the positive rejuvenation of the symbiont. Much less,” she added with a wry smile, “much less that I originated on Fuerte.”

  “She doesn’t have much time.” Lars gave her his one-sided grin, though his blue eyes remained sad. “And you’re much better at Disclosure than anyone else I know.”

  Grumbling to herself, nevertheless Killashandra went to the closet and dragged out the first clean shipsuit she saw, thrusting her feet through the pant legs, shoving her arms down the sleeves, and closing the front as she used her toes to hook boots from the floor. She jammed her feet into them.

  “Where’ve they stashed her?”

  Lars’s arm came around her shoulders and he nuzzled her ear, kissing fondly but with no hint of sensuality. “In Recruitment.”

  “Recruitment?”

  He nodded. “You’ll understand when you get there. Now go!”

  In fact, he walked her to the lift and gave her another kiss when she exited at the shuttle level. Killashandra wasn’t happy about Lanzecki preempting Lars’s assistance, but she didn’t really mind about her assignment—she had done it before.

  The Ballybran symbiont was the last chance for those whose illnesses could not be cured by modern techniques. In a galactic civilization, minor human mutations could result in major immune reactions to relatively innocuous viruses that refused to respond even with an immense pharmacopoeia and therapeutics cunningly developed from old-world reliables and alien innovations. Exposure to the Ballybran symbiont had proved remarkably effective in almost every single case—at least the ones that reached the planet before the organ damage had gone past the point of retrieval. The obvious deterrent was that the patient then had to take up whatever new life the symbiont provided—and not always that of crysta
l singer, since that required perfect pitch. But crystal singing was not the only career available on Ballybran. Support skills and professions were always welcomed. Killa wondered what skills this new candidate might have. Maybe replace that dork in Lanzecki’s office?

  Lanzecki’s personal shuttle was parked at the bay, and the pilot ceased lounging the moment she emerged from the lift, gesturing to her urgently to hurry. She gave him a smile, since he appeared to know her.

  “What’s the gen on this candidate?” she asked as she strapped herself in.

  He nodded briefly and completed the formalities with Traffic Control, but he didn’t answer until they had cleared Ballybran’s atmosphere.

  “The daughter of some planetary official …”

  “Fuerte.”

  “Yeah, that’s the place. Medic says they got her here just about in time. Some bug’s doing nasty things to her spinal cord.”

  Killashandra gave a shudder.

  “The irony is that she was trying to find a vaccine for the same infection.”

  “She’s medical?” Medically trained personnel were valuable on Ballybran, despite the symbiont’s benefices.

  “Research and Development. Not enough R and very little D,” he added.

  Shankill Base cleared them immediately to the Guild portal.

  “I’ll wait,” the pilot said with a nod as he opened the shuttle’s lock.

  The recruitment director, a rather portly and impressive-looking man, seemed immensely relieved at her arrival.

  “This way, Killashandra Ree,” he said. “They oughtn’t to have left this so long,” he added with a mixture of annoyance and criticism. “She may not make it.”

  Killa started to give a facetious response, but limited herself to a shrug.

  “This way,” he said, gesturing her away from the interview rooms toward one of the larger accommodations. “We have completed all the necessary formalities …”

  “Then why—” She broke off, for he had palmed the door open and she was momentarily startled by the number of people crowded into the room. From the expressions on their faces, she began to understand some of the problems. The candidate was on a float, to one side of the room, a medic hovering anxiously and fussing with the dials of the support system that evidently kept the girl alive. Five people whose faces were tanned by Fuertan sun and anxious with fear rushed toward her, each addressing her with such urgency that she could understand nothing.

  “Which of you are her parents?” Killashandra asked. “I can plainly see who’s the applicant.”

  Two stepped forward while the other three looked displeased at being excluded.

  “I am Governor Fiske-Ulass,” the man said, “Donalla’s father, and this is her mother, Dian Fiske-Ulass.”

  “So what’s your problem?”

  The man gave a twitch to his shoulders that suggested to Killa that he was rarely in the position of petitioner and found it unacceptable.

  “We find that we are unable to accompany Donalla to Ballybran …”

  “You may—if you wish to remain with her,” Killa said drolly.

  Irritation flickered in his eyes, but he went on, regarding her with growing suspicion. Fuertan officials hated being challenged.

  “That there is absolutely no guarantee that this—this unusual symbiosis will cure her …”

  The medic spoke up from the side of the room. “It was her option, Governor. Her option when she was still able to speak. She maintains that position.”

  Killa made eye contact with the medic. “She can no longer speak?”

  “She can communicate,” the medic replied, sending a glance at the governor, who flicked his fingers in repudiation of that statement.

  “How?”

  “If you have been in attendance on an invalid, you learn to interpret requirements …”

  The governor snorted in dismissal, and the mother stifled a sob. Killa nodded her head in acceptance, however, and waited for the medic to continue.

  “One blink of the eyelids is no, two is yes.” She stepped away from the float, gesturing Killa to see for herself.

  “Everyone blinks,” the governor said.

  Killa ignored him and approached the patient. Looking at the bleached white face, lines of long suffering and pain drawn on the papery-looking dry skin, Killashandra felt a stab of sympathy for this wreck of a human being. Her head was braced, and Killa had to bend slightly over her to see her eyes, light blue, alive and vivid in a sickly yellow that should have been healthy white.

  “Is Ballybran symbiosis what you wish?” she asked.

  The eyelids closed firmly once, then twice, and then the eyes held Killa’s glance with an appeal that was crystal clear.

  “What’s the prognosis without symbiont?” she asked the medic.

  “How she’s held on to life this long is beyond me,” the medic murmured. “A few more days at the most, and that’s close to miraculous.”

  “And there’s been full Disclosure, to which Donalla has agreed,” Killa asked, lightly stressing the girl’s name as she regarded the recruitment officer.

  He nodded. “In strict accordance with regulations. But the parents have to sign in her place, since she is unable to. That’s also regs.”

  “So what is your problem?”

  “We’ve heard tales …” the mother blurted out while her husband glared suspiciously at Killashandra.

  “That the symbiont changes people into monsters?” Killashandra asked, and knew that, indeed, that was their fear.

  She snatched an ampoule from the medic’s pack, smashed it against the table, and, to the horrified astonishment of those in the room, deliberately gouged her forearm with a shard of the broken glass. The lacerations were satisfactorily long and bled profusely.

  “A monster that heals in minutes,” Killa said, holding out her arm so that all could see how quickly the symbiont worked to stem blood flow and repair tissue. “Sign!” she said to the parents in her most imperious tone. “You’ve got thirty seconds before I leave … without her and her last chance to live.”

  It didn’t take Dian Fiske-Ulass that long to reach for the document and scrawl her signature. She held the stylus out to her husband. “What other chance has Donalla got?” she cried.

  “None,” the medic said firmly, and closed her lips over whatever else she would have added.

  With a shrug of angry resignation, the governor took the stylus and scribbled his name, illegible, but embellished with rather fancy amendments. “There! You’ve taken my only daughter from me.”

  “And you’re governor of Fuerte?” Killa asked with contempt and then turned to the medic. “Let’s get her aboard the shuttle. The Guild Master sent his personal craft.” She shot a jaundiced look at Fiske-Ulass.

  The others trailed after the float, Dian beginning to sob, the governor trying to recover his public image by appearing sternly resolved.

  As soon as the pilot saw them in the corridor, he moved forward to take the front end of the float from Killa, who gently took the other position from the medic.

  “Give me your code and I’ll let you know the outcome,” she told her.

  The medic jerked her head back at the retinue. “They’re all staying on the station until …”

  Killashandra snorted. “Our head medic will communicate all details to you. What’s your name?”

  The medic gave her a very odd smile. “Hendra Ree.”

  “Ree? You’re a relative?” When the medic nodded, her eyes dancing a bit, Killa went on, “So you knew I was here?”

  “You’re something of a family legend, and I mentioned you, and Ballybran’s symbiont, to Donalla when her condition disimproved,” the medic told her as they maneuvered the float into the shuttle.

  “Legend?” Killashandra asked, surprised, for she hadn’t expected her family to remember her at all, considering she had left home in the company of an infamous crystal singer. She strapped in the handles of the float.

  “Even in today
’s sophisticated tech societies, legends have their place.”

  “No, sir, not even in shuttle,” they could hear the pilot saying. “Not unless you want to stay. Shards, the air in here was processed on Ballybran. You’re getting enough just saying your farewells.”

  Instantly the governor backed out, restraining his wife from setting foot over the threshold.

  The medic gave a little snort, tugged to be sure the straps were secure, and then, in a swift movement, bent to kiss Donalla’s cheek. “Good luck, kid!” she whispered.

  Hendra turned slightly as she left the shuttle and gave Killa a good-luck sign and a broad grin. Was that what you did when you met a family legend? Killa wondered.

  “Let’s move it,” Killashandra said, belting into her seat as the pilot slipped into the control chair.

  As soon as he was released from the satellite dock, he contacted Heptite HQ, telling them to be ready to receive the terminally ill applicant.

  The medical team was squeezing through the portal before it was fully dilated. As they angled the float out, Killashandra noticed the tear streaks down the sick girl’s pallid face.

  “You’re okay, Donalla?” she asked.

  The eyelids closed twice, each time squeezing out tear drops, oddly emphatic in a bizarre fashion.

  “I’ll keep in touch, kid!” Killa added as the medical team whisked the girl away to the waiting lift.

  Donalla wouldn’t be in the Infirmary, but in one of the candidate rooms until she became infected by the symbiont. Killa hoped that it wouldn’t take long for a body already so weakened and stressed by illness. There was an aura of courage about Donalla that Killa respected, and she hoped that the girl’s stupid, bias-ridden parents hadn’t dallied away her last hope of life.

  She nodded her thanks to the pilot and then strode to the nearest comunit, asking for Lars Dahl.

  “You got her?”

  “Let’s hope in a timely fashion. She’s pretty far gone.”

  Lars gave a grunt. “All the easier for the symbiont to get to work—according to Medical.”

  “By the way, being Fuertan was no help!” Killa grinned at his look of query. “Except for the medic.”

  “That’s right, keep me guessing.”