Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  “I don’t know any Donalla.” And Killashandra brushed past the woman and slid into her restocked sled and closed the door firmly.

  As she maneuvered the sled out of the Hangar, the flight officer kept wildly pointing to his headphones, wanting her to open up her comline, but she ignored him and sped away, taking a zigzag course at such speed that no one could track her.

  She finally found crystal—deep greens in dominants. She was still cutting when the alarms in her sled went off. That made her stop—briefly—and consult her weather sense. For the first time it had not given her advance notice. Or had it? She’d had a few sessions with crystal thrall lately. Perhaps … But it was only the first of the warnings. She had time.

  She almost didn’t, for the last of the greens, a massive plinth, thralled her, and only the lashing of gale-force winds broke the spell by knocking her off balance and out of the trance.

  Frantic to load her cartons, for she obviously hadn’t bothered to for several days, she worked against the slimmest margin ever. Luck barely hung on to the fins of her sled, for the crash came on the very edge of the storm, near enough for a crew to rescue the crystal and her battered body. The sled was a write-off.

  * * *

  “Whaddid I cut? How much did I earn?” were Killashandra’s first coherent questions when she finally roused from accident trauma.

  “Enough, I gather, to replace your sled, Killa,” a female voice said.

  Killashandra managed to open her eyes, though her lids were incredibly heavy to raise. It was hard to focus, but gradually she was able to distinguish a woman’s face.

  She retrieved a suitable name with effort. “Antona?”

  “No, not Antona. Donalla.”

  “Donalla?” Killa peered earnestly, blinking furiously to clear her sight. She didn’t recognize the face. “Do I know you?”

  “Not very well.” There was a slight ripple of amusement in the tone. “But a while ago you saved my life.”

  “I don’t remember cutting crystal with anyone.”

  “Oh, I’m not a singer. I’m a medic. Do you remember anything at all about helping persuade my parents to let me come to Ballybran?”

  “No.” When Killa began to shake her head to emphasize the negative, she experienced considerable pain. “I’ve had little to do with recruitment,” she said repressively. “I sing crystal. I don’t entice people to it.”

  “You didn’t entice me, Killashandra Ree, but you did give my parents incontrovertible proof that the Ballybran symbiont heals. Fast.”

  “It has to, doesn’t it, to keep singers in the field? I nearly bought it this time, didn’t I?”

  “As near as makes no never mind,” said a man’s voice. That one was familiar—and panic welled up in her. Him she didn’t want to see. That much she remembered. She turned her head away from the direction of the voice—the Guild Master’s voice.

  A hand clasped her fingers warmly, the thumb caressing the back of her hand with an intimacy she found both reassuring and insidious. She tried to pull away and hadn’t the strength to do so.

  “Mangled yourself rather extensively, Sunny. I’ve always been afraid that would happen. If I’d been there …”

  Infuriated, she did manage to snatch her hand free. “You weren’t. You were in an office. Where the Guild Master has to stay!” She chewed the words out spitefully, and when she saw his face come into her line of vision, she raised her arm, despite the pain, to cover her eyes. “You had your chance to cut crystal with me. Go away.” She flung her arm in his direction in an effort to strike him.

  “I think you’d better go, Lars. Your presence is definitely not reassuring. She’s incoherent.”

  “On the contrary, Donalla, she’s most coherent.”

  “Please, Lars, don’t take her seriously. Not now. She’s in considerable pain despite the symbiont.”

  “She’ll survive?”

  “Oh, most certainly. The lacerations are healing quickly, and the leg bones are almost completely joined. Strained tendons and pulled muscles take a little longer to mend.”

  “Let me know when she’s … herself again, will you, Donalla? And suggest …”

  “I’ll keep you informed, Lars, and I won’t suggest anything right now. It would be totally inappropriate.”

  Killashandra moved restlessly, subconsciously resenting the friendliness of the exchanges, the subtle inference of a relationship between the two speakers: this Donalla and the man she did not want to acknowledge at all.

  “I’m giving you something to put you out a while longer, Killashandra,” the woman said, and Killa felt the cold of a spray on her neck. “You’ll be better when you wake.”

  “Nothing’s ever better when you wake.”

  It was morning when next she woke, or so the digital on the wall told her. Day, month, and year were never a function of Heptite timekeepers. And, as the Infirmary was deep in the bowels of the Guild, shielded against the ravages of Passover storms, a wall hologram reflected the external weather. Somehow a bright clear morning seemed blasphemous to Killashandra. She groaned. But the bed sensors had already picked up the alteration in her sleep pattern, and the door opened, a bright face peering around it.

  “Hungry?”

  “Ravenous,” Killa said with a groan. Hunger also seemed a travesty to her, and she buried her face in the pillows.

  “Be right back.”

  Food did set immediate needs to rights. Sitting up to eat also emphasized her recuperation. She didn’t hurt, though her limbs felt very stiff. She examined her arms and legs and ran wondering fingers down the whitening scars that showed how horrific her wounds had been. Inevitably that reminded her that she had crashed the sled. She couldn’t quite face that yet, so she heaved herself out of bed and went into the bathroom to run a deep tub of hot water, full of aromatics to ease the lingering stiffness. Finally, refreshed as well as more flexible, she settled at the room terminal and tapped out her personal code. Ignoring the line that invited her to update her memory data, she accessed her credit balance. For a moment her spirits sank. There wasn’t enough to replace the sled.

  Wait a minute. There was not enough credit to replace the sled she had crashed, but that one had been a double. She wasn’t singing duet anymore. She had enough for a single, maybe not top of the line, but sufficient to get her back into the Ranges and, if she bought just basic rations, enough supplies for a month. She tapped out a query about her cutter. If she had banjaxed the cutter, she would be in heavy debt. Not for long, she assured herself. Not for long. She’d cut—blacks again—and show him! She dialed the cutter’s facility, but no one answered. She couldn’t remember the current one’s name and stewed over that. She called up the Admin roster to see who it was: “Clarend nab Ost” rang no bells and, evidently, answered no calls to his or her quarters. Fortunately the girl arrived with lunch to distract a growing sense of frustration.

  By the time she had finished the second hearty meal, she had also managed to contact Clarend nab Ost, who had a few choice words to say about someone who would leave her cutter unracked, crash, and then expect the tool to be ready to go. She hotly insisted that she always racked her cutter.

  “So how come it was stuck in the cargo hatch door?” he asked snidely.

  That silenced her. She was far more appalled by that lapse than she was about crashing the sled or her own injuries. So she apologized profusely, and Clarend finally ended his tirade against careless, derelict, wanton, blasé, feeble-minded, lack-witted singers and their sins, errors, and shame. Then he told her in a less trenchant tone that he hadn’t quite finished repairs and he couldn’t vouch for its continued efficiency if she abused it her next time in the Ranges and she was bloody lucky she had a cutter at all the way she’d treated it.

  Oddly enough, the episode made her feel somewhat better: things were normal when one got properly chewed out by a technician for blatant irresponsibility. She called the Hangar and asked how long she would have to wait for a replac
ement single.

  “I’ve enough credit—unless you’ve jacked the cost up again,” she told the supply officer.

  “The very idea of our benefiting by your misfortune! Single, you want now? I thought—”

  “You’re not keeping up with the gossip, Ritwili,” she said so angrily that there was a long silence. “Haul one out of stock and commission it, provision it. Basic rations for a month. I should be out of here soon.”

  “Not quite ‘soon,’ ” interrupted the medic who had overheard the last of her conversation.

  Killa frowned: the woman looked familiar … and yet unfamiliar. Killashandra shrugged, unable to prod recall.

  “In case you’ve forgotten, I’m Donalla Fiske-Ulass, a fellow planetarian from Fuerte,” the woman said, advancing to the bed. Her voice ended on an upnote of inquiry.

  Killa sighed and shook her head. “I don’t remember. Don’t expect me to.”

  “Oh, I do. I expect that the woman who saved my life should remember the fact,” Donalla said blandly, shoving her hands in the pockets of her clinical coat. She was a very attractive woman, slender without being thin—although the idea of thinness tweaked Killashandra’s memory. Her hair was curly and short, and framed a delicate-featured, clever face. She had lovely eyes and exuded an air of authority and competence. “Especially when I consider myself under obligation to you.”

  “There’re no obligations in the Guild,” Killa reminded her.

  “Among singers, no, because you lot are, and have to be, competitive, dedicated, and woefully single-minded.” Donalla grinned again. “So you’ll allow me to discharge my obligation to you.”

  “I said, I don’t recognize that there is one.”

  “You could if you remembered it,” Donalla insisted, and something in the almost wheedling tone made Killashandra wary.

  “I avoid people trying to do me good,” she said in a flat and, she hoped, discouraging voice.

  Donalla perched on the edge of the bed and regarded Killashandra for a moment. “That’s because you haven’t heard what the good bit is.”

  “Do I have to?” Killa sighed resignedly.

  “Yes, because the Guild Master has asked me to approach every singer on this matter.”

  “Oh, he has.” Killa set up an immediate resistance to the notion.

  Donalla laughed lightly, as if she recognized the reaction and had expected it. “Hmmm, yes, well. Quite a few singers have taken me up on my offer.”

  “Enough of the jollying. Inform me in words of one syllable.”

  “Don’t be churlish, Killashandra Ree.” There was a caustic tone to Donalla’s voice now that made Killashandra regard her with surprise. “Since I recovered my health here, I’ve tried to figure a way around the most important drawback that all singers face.”

  “How kind of you!” Killashandra gave a supercilious snort.

  “Kindness has little to do with it. An efficient use of singers’ time and energies does. Singers lose memory function every time they go into the Ranges. They lose crucial details of the precise location of valuable sites.”

  “Detail maybe, but not the resonance that’ll lead you right back to a good claim,” Killashandra said, shaking her head to dismiss Donalla’s faulty logic.

  “Only if you go right back into the Ranges. How much more convenient it would be to recall the exact locations by accurately remembering the relevant landmarks.”

  “And leave such information around for other singers to access? No way! Try another on me.”

  “I’m not trying anything on you. I’ve already had notable success in accessing memory in crystal-mazed singers’ minds.”

  “You’ve what?” Killashandra sat up, fury building in her at such an intrusion. Who did this woman think she was?

  “I had the Guild Master’s authority, and it’s—”

  “Get out of here. I don’t want any part of such a scheme. That Guild Master of yours must be out of his gourd to permit such harassment. That’s the worst example of privacy invasion I’ve ever heard.”

  “But so much information can be restored,” Donalla said urgently, bending toward Killashandra in an effort to win her over. “So much lost memory can be retrieved.”

  “I haven’t lost anything I want retrieved.” Killashandra was a decibel away from a shout. “Go peddle your nonsense to someone else, Donalla. Leave me alone!”

  “But I want to help you, Killashandra,” Donalla said, switching tactics.

  “I don’t need that kind of help. Now go, or do I have to throw you out? I’m well enough to do so, you know.” And she half rose from her chair.

  Donalla pushed off the edge of the bed and took a step back, flustered. “You’ll be helping Lars Dahl as well, you know. Not to mention your Guild.”

  “Spare me the sentimental violin passage, Donalla. Loyalty is another commodity singers lack and don’t need!” Killashandra completed her rise in one fluid movement, delighted that her body would respond so readily. She grabbed Donalla by the arm, turned her toward the door, and forcefully ejected her from the room. “And don’t come back.”

  “If you’d only listen …” Donalla began, but Killa shut the door on her entreaty.

  “Regression isn’t painful!” The woman was incredible, shouting through a closed door at her. With one twist of the volume control, Killa turned on to full whatever program was on the in-room entertainment, drowning out Donalla’s voice. Then she threw on the door privacy lock.

  For a long moment she seethed, letting the music, some sort of a baroque chorus, roll over her. The song was familiar to her. She picked up the soprano line, surprised and pleased to be able to add words to the notes. She broke off singing when, even to herself, her voice sounded harsh and strident.

  Well, wouldn’t it? When she was being harassed by a silly bitch who had made a unilateral decision about what Killashandra Ree “needed”? Only Killashandra Ree could make those decisions. She had earned that right, by all the holies! Ridiculous woman! Absurd notion—reviving useless baggage of memories. And the Guild Master agreed?

  Killa exhaled in disgust, reviewing what Donalla had said. Her memory might be faulty, but she had been reading voices for years. She snorted again, remembering tonalities and inflections that told her more than Donalla might have intended. The woman had said Lars’s name in a tone that indicated more than casual acquaintance with him, intimating a relationship that was more than work-oriented. They were a fine pair, they were! Well suited! If she’d known the woman would take on this way, behaving like a conscience, she’d’ve let her die in the Recruitment Room!

  “There, too, I can remember—when I want to!” Killa muttered to herself. Then she laughed as she heard the childish petulance in her voice. She remembered the important things, like how to fly a sled, how to locate claims, how to cut—and, most important of all, she generally remembered what to cut in order to get top market value on her crystal. What more did she need to remember? The petty details of everyday life? The trivia that clogged the brain and got in the way: the incidents that humiliated or enraged, the bilge, bosh, claptrap that happened while traveling, things inconsequential when one would only be visiting the world once?

  What about remembering the new world?

  If it was worthwhile, interesting, or exciting, I’ll remember it, she told herself.

  Will you?

  I can, if I want to! I can!

  She slept away the afternoon and awoke to hear a tentative tapping on her door. It was the bright little infirmary aide wanting to serve her dinner. She ate heartily, trying to ignore the fact that someone had gone to the trouble of ordering a selection of her favorite foods. That would pad the charges for her Infirmary usage. Ah, well. She’d always paid for exotics, and the Yarran beer did go down a treat!

  She didn’t see the irritating Donalla over the next three days but had several sessions with therapists, who worked to help her regain full muscle tone. She retrieved her cutter from Clarend, who warned her again
to remember—remember—that she couldn’t abuse her cutter again or she would have to replace it. She took possession of a sparkling brand-new sled.

  “I won’t tell you how many you’ve banged up over the years, Killa,” Ritwili told her in a sour tone as he extended the purchase order for her signature. “And stocking it took the rest of your credit. You’re in the red right now—so cut well!”

  She paused long enough to contact Clodine and find out what crystal she ought to look for.

  “Someone’s wanting those deep amethysts and, of course, any black you stumble across,” Clodine said with a grin. “You’ve a natural affinity for them anyway, and blacks are always needed.”

  “Yeah.” Killa wasn’t all that happy with her affinity. She liked the money from blacks but not cutting them solo. They tended to thrall more easily than any other color. “I’ll remember that.”

  She was not the only singer departing the Guild Hangar that day: fifteen others were making ready and each of them was determined to be the last one out and thus not only see the direction every other singer was taking but conceal his or her own ultimate destination.

  Disgusted, Killashandra gave up waiting. At this rate, it would be dark before she made any significant progress into the Range. Noting the marks of age and misuse on most of the other vehicles, she realized that with her new sled, she could easily outfly any of them. She asked, and received, clearance, along with a heartfelt thanks from the flight officer, who was losing patience with the dilatory singers.

  “Blinding damn paranoid, the lot of ’em,” he muttered, forgetting to close the circuit.

  “You better believe it,” Killa said with a laugh, and eased her new vehicle through the Hangar’s immense outer doors.

  The exchange put Killashandra in a good mood, which improved even more when she heard five other singers suddenly demanding clearance. Well, she’d show them!

  Capriciously she zipped off at a speed inappropriate for her proximity to the Hangar, laughing at the flight officer’s irate reprimand. Running at a recklessly low altitude over the uneven terrain of the foothills, she built the sled up to maximum power as fast as she dared.