Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  “Ah, the E majors? Best I ever cut. I ’member.” The words were slurred, but both medic and singer listened hard. “I ’member. Two peaks, like cones, and then the flat part …” The words became more distinct; the voice even sounded younger, more vibrant. “Narrow ravine, winds like an S, had to tip the sled and damned near lost her but I knew there was black around. Fardling steep slope up to the peaks, sharp to climb, slipped often but crystal’s there … feel it in my knees and hands …”

  “The coordinates, Rimbol. What are the coordinates? You saw them when you finally set the sled down. You know you did. So put yourself back then, when you’re looking down at your console. Now, you can see the figures on the scope, can’t you?”

  “See ’em …”

  “What do you see, Rimbol? Look closely. The numbers are very clear, aren’t they?”

  “Clear …”

  “What numbers do you see?”

  “Ah …” And another sigh escaped the old man. “Longitude, one fifty-two degrees twenty-two, latitude sixteen degrees fifteen. Didn’t think I’d ’member that. I did!” He smiled contentedly and his closed eyelids trembled.

  Killashandra had jotted down the coordinates and then looked at the figures, still uneasy about obtaining such information.

  “He’ll never make it there again, Killa,” Donalla said softly. “He doesn’t need them. The Guild which cares for him does.”

  “Someone else could probably find the claim without scouring it out of his mind,” Killashandra said, resisting the intrusion for Rimbol’s sake. His name sounded familiar, but he had altered far too much for her to recall what he had looked like as a young and vigorous man.

  “There isn’t time for random chance.” Then Donalla turned back to her patient. “Thanks, Rimbol. You have been marvelously helpful.”

  “Have?”

  Killashandra was astounded to see a smile return to tremble on the wasted lips, a smile that remained even after Donalla ended the hypnotic session. She said nothing when she noted that Killashandra had seen that smile. She turned up the music, a lilting, merry tune, and, as the two women left, Killashandra turned back and saw a distorted finger lift in time to the rhythm.

  When they had finished their snack, Killashandra checked their flight path and estimated that they were nearly there. They overflew the black-and-yellow chevrons ten minutes later, and she circled, mentally chanting Lars’s choosing rhyme—eeny, meeny—as she looked for the landmarks he had told her marked the exact location of the black crystal.

  She had turned 160 degrees before she recognized the configuration of ravines: three, one rising behind the other, in frozen waves of stone. At the base of the third, she should find signs of workings. She did: recent workings because sunlit sparkles caught her eye.

  “Here we are,” she caroled out to Donalla. “Behold!” She gestured expansively out the front window. “An actual crystal site!”

  Donalla’s lips parted and then a slight frown marred her high forehead.

  “No, it’s not much to look at,” Killa said, lightly teasing. “A place known only to few and treasured by many.” She locked down the controls, noting as she did so, as she always did whether she had realized it before or not, the coordinates on the screen before she shut the engines off. She had to admit that such an automatic scan was as much a part of a landing routine as turning off the engine—so automatic that she wouldn’t remember she had done it three seconds after she had. There would be hundreds of such flashes for Donalla to probe …

  She reached for her cutter and gave the lined carrier for cut crystal to Donalla to tote and opened the sled door. Through the soles of her heavy work boots, she could feel the ripple of the nearby black. She swallowed hard. The call of black was strong. Maybe Lars had been right: she wasn’t ready for black yet. But they hadn’t much choice, had they?

  She led the way to the face, visible because of the regular steps where crystal had been recently cut. Nothing looked familiar. She knew from checking files that he had cut alone for nearly a decade—a decade she hadn’t even known had passed while they were estranged. But, and she shook her head in surprise, the claim bore their chevron markings. Lars was a bundle of contradictions, wasn’t he? He was too sentimental to be a good Guild Master, she thought; then, thinking of recent examples of his ruthlessness, she reversed her opinion.

  As she narrowed the distance, she explained once more to Donalla exactly how a singer proceeded on site: finding a clear side of crystal, sounding a tuning note, setting the cutter, and then excising the crystal.

  “The dangerous part is when I hold the crystal up. If sun hits it, I’ll go into thrall.” Wryly she glanced up to check the position of the sun, trying to ignore the hard cold knot developing in her stomach. “Well,” she said, exhaling a deep breath, “here goes!” She motioned for Donalla to step back a bit, farther away from the business edge of the cutter.

  Killashandra eyed the crystal face. Yes, these were Lars’s cuttings. She would know them anywhere. Recent storms had not damaged his distinctive style. She brushed some loose splinters away and felt the crystal resonance just a note away. She pressed her hand flat against the surface and, setting her diaphragm, sang a clear mid-C. The crystal vibrated almost excitedly to the sound. She set the cutter. Putting the blade perpendicular to the face, she rammed it in, disengaged the blade, sliced from the top to her lower cut, then quickly shifted position to make the second downward cut, freeing the shaft. She turned off the cutter, letting it slip down the harness that held it to her shoulder.

  “Now, Donalla,” she said. She lifted the black crystal high, high enough to catch the sun, and felt the beginnings of thrall paralyze her. She could no more have evaded that than Rimbol had been able to evade Donalla.

  Hard grit dug into her face, irregular hard objects poked her the length of her body, and her ears rang with an unpleasant dissonance that would soon split her skull. Abruptly the unendurable noise quit.

  “Killa! Killa! Are you all right?”

  A hand on her shoulder shook her, tentatively at first, then more urgently. But the voice was female. She had never cut with a woman! She propped herself up, one hand automatically feeling for the cutter. Her cutter? Where was it? She couldn’t have lost her cutter! Dazed, she looked about, patting the ground. Her eyes were dry in their sockets and ached.

  “Killa?”

  Boots scrabbled on the litter and someone’s face peered anxiously at her. But the someone held her precious cutter in one hand and a black-crystal shaft in the other.

  “I didn’t drop it …” Killa was weak with relief.

  “I was about to shatter it if the cutter noise hadn’t worked,” the woman said.

  Killa peered at the anxious face. It was familiar. She forced a tired mind to put name to face. Ah! “Donalla!”

  “Who did you expect?” Relief made Donalla’s voice sharp.

  Killa eased herself to a sitting position. She couldn’t trust her legs yet. Her right shoulder ached, and her arm was riddled with sharp needles of renewed circulation. She massaged her shoulder, gradually becoming aware that darkness was rapidly shadowing the narrow ravine.

  “So?” she asked Donalla curtly as memory flooded back. She had cut black to go into thrall, which she had obviously done, and the thrall had lasted much longer than planned.

  The look on the medic’s face answered her question. “You were more impenetrable than when I tried back at the Infirmary,” she said, with a weary sigh. “You just stood there, holding this wretched thing.” She gave the black shaft a careless waggle. Killa lunged to save it. Donalla drew it sharply back into her chest.

  “I’m all right now, Donalla. It can’t thrall me again. Just don’t damage the thing.”

  “After what it did to you? I thought I’d never get it out of your hand.” Donalla regarded her burden warily.

  “Then put it in the carrier.” Killa wrenched her upper body about, looking for the carrier, and jabbed her finger at it. “Just
don’t drop it,” she added as Donalla obeyed. Her voice was strident with anxiety. She cleared her throat and went on, controlling her voice, “For some reason, fresh crystal cracks faster than at any other time. Ah!” She sighed in relief as the medic stowed and covered the shaft.

  Killa got to her feet then, brushing off clinging bits and pieces of dirt and crystal. She was tired, but glancing at the sun, she saw there was enough light left to make a couple more cuts to add to this bigger C.

  “What are you doing?” Donalla asked, her voice sharp with concern.

  “I’m going to cut.” She had to use force to get Donalla to release the cutter.

  “But I couldn’t break through the thrall.”

  “Shouldn’t keep me from cutting. Especially as it’s black.”

  Killa went down a fifth, sang loud and clear, heard the answering note, and set her cutter. Donalla stepped in front of her.

  “Out of my way,” Killa said, appalled that she had been about to swing the cutter into position—a movement that would have brought the blade slicing right through Donalla’s thighs.

  “I can’t let you.”

  “Ah, leave off, Donalla!” Killa tried to push her away. “There’s no sun. It’s the sun that starts thrall. For the love of anything you hold sacred, let me use the light that’s left.”

  “You’re sure? It took me hours …”

  “Well, it won’t happen at this time of day.” Killa blew out with exasperation. Donalla was worse than any novice she had ever shepherded. “Sun’s nearly down. Now, move out of my way!”

  Hesitantly and watching Killa very warily indeed, Donalla stepped aside. Killa sang again and tuned the cutter, neatly slicing beyond her first cut. She excised that one, managed two more quick ones in the same level—smallish and stocky but black! She had the cutter poised for a third when the face turned sour. There was an intrusion or a flaw. Cursing under her breath, she stepped back and signaled Donalla to bring the carrier over. She finished packing crystal just as the last of the sunlight faded from the ridges above them.

  The two women stumbled back to the sled, the carrier between them. Only when she had seen the carrier secured behind straps and the cutter properly racked did Killashandra allow fatigue to creep up on her.

  “How long did you say I was thralled?” she asked, slumping into the pilot’s chair.

  “I forgot to check the time right away,” Donalla admitted, “but from the time I did till I threw you down, it took three and a half hours!”

  Killa chuckled weakly. “Don’t doubt it.” She rubbed at shoulder muscles still twinging from a long inactivity. “And I wouldn’t answer?”

  “You kept staring at the crystal. I tried every single maneuver Lars showed me and you might as well have been crystal yourself for all the blind good it did me.”

  She had been scared, Killashandra decided; that’s what was making her angry now.

  “Don’t reproach yourself, Donalla. I got out, and the crystal’s okay. I’d’ve been out of thrall once the sun went down. Or did Lars remember to mention that?” He hadn’t, to judge by the expression on Donalla’s face. “Fix me something to drink, will you? I’m too tired to move, and my throat’s so dry …”

  Donalla banged the cup on the counter as she hauled the water out of the cooler, her movements revealing more plainly than any words the state of her feelings.

  With food in her stomach, Killashandra took a hand beam and went out to examine the face. If she could cut past the damaged crystal to clear stuff, she ought to. She was damned lucky to find black—then she laughed, recalling that luck hadn’t entered into the discovery. Knowing that she would have black to cut in this site took some of the elation out of the work. It was the mystery, the challenge of having to find the elusive material. But the work was still rewarding—and Donalla had had the chance to acquire firsthand Range experience to augment her clinical knowledge of crystal singers.

  Killa hummed softly, listened for an answering resonance, and heard none. Cursing under her breath, she went back to the sled. She would have to wait till morning to see how deep the flaw was. Worse than not finding black was finding it uncuttable.

  She woke in the night, aware of the warm body beside her and instantly recognizing it as Donalla’s, not Lars’s. That was another matter they had neglected to explain to Donalla. As the woman was apparently unremittingly heterosexual, Killa decided she would have to manage on her own—morning song could be rather more of a shock than Donalla was ready to handle.

  Moving carefully, Killa rose. She found an extra thermal blanket in the cupboard and let herself out of the sled. This wouldn’t be the first time she had slept on the ground. Rolling herself up under the prow of the sled where she would be protected from any heavy dew, she wriggled around until she got comfortable and dropped off to sleep again.

  Dawn and crystal woke, singing her awake. She took deep breaths to reduce the effect on her until she heard Donalla crying out. Grinning, but as uncomfortable as Donalla probably was, Killa endured. She waited until the effects had faded before returning to the cabin.

  “What was that? Where did you go?” Donalla demanded, her tone almost accusatory.

  “That’s crystal waking up to sunlight. Fabulous experience, isn’t it?” Killa grinned unrepentantly, folding her thermal to stow it away again. “I felt discretion was the better part of retaining our growing friendship.”

  “Oh!” Donalla flushed beet red and turned away, looking anywhere but at Killashandra. “No one told me about this.”

  “I know,” Killashandra said sympathetically. “It’s another case of us knowing it so well we think everyone else knows it.”

  Donalla took another deep breath and managed a weak smile. “I gather—I mean—well, is that why certain partnerships … Oh, I’m not sure what I mean.”

  Killa laughed, flicking the switch on the hot-water heater as she began preparations for cooking breakfast. “It has a tendency to make minor quarrels disappear in the morning.”

  By the time she had eaten, Donalla had turned clinical in her examination of the sensual effect of sun-warmed crystal on human libido. Killa answered honestly and fully, amused at Donalla’s professional curiosity.

  “What’s astonishing is that more singers don’t sing duet,” the medic finally announced, turning inquiringly to Killa, who shrugged.

  “I suppose it’s like anything else,” she said. “Palls after a few score years.”

  “You and Lars were partners for—” Donalla bit off the rest of her sentence.

  Killa regarded her for a long moment. Those of the Guild who did not lose “time” in the Ranges were taught not to make comparisons that could upset singers.

  “A long time,” Killa said. “A very long time.” She paused. “It doesn’t seem like a long time. How old am I, Donalla?”

  “You certainly don’t look your age, Killashandra,” Donalla said, temporizing, “and I won’t put a figure to it.”

  Killa grunted and heaved a big sigh. “You’re right, you know, and I don’t really want a figure.”

  “You don’t look older than four, maybe five decades,” Donalla offered as compensation.

  “Thanks.” Then Killa rose, having finished her meal. “I’ve got black I might be able to cut out of that face. I’ve got to try.” She waggled a finger at Donalla. “Only today, you make bloody sure you take any cut right out of my hand the moment I’ve pulled it free. You wrench it from me, if necessary; and carefully, mind you, stow it in the carton.”

  Donalla stood ready all day to follow those orders, but they were never needed. The black had fractured right down into the base of the site. Killa swore, because she had cut so carefully the day before. She hadn’t heard the fracture note as she finished cutting the third shaft. Usually a crack like that was not only audible but sensed even through the thick soles of her boots.

  “Damn, damn, and double damn,” she said, admitting defeat in midafternoon. She had even tried to find an outcroppi
ng somewhere else in the rock but hadn’t heard so much as a murmur from crystal.

  “What?” Donalla asked, rousing from a state of somnolence. She had been patiently watching Killa’s explorations from a perch on the height.

  “It’s gone. No point in staying here.”

  “We’re going back?” Donalla’s expression brightened.

  “We shouldn’t. We should look around.”

  “Lars only gave you these coordinates.”

  “Yes, but somewhere around here,” Killa said, waving her hand in a comprehensive sweep that took in the entire ravine, “there’ll be more black crystal.”

  “How long will it take you to find it?”

  “Ah …” Killa waggled her forefinger. “That’s the rub. I don’t know where.”

  “Well, then, let’s go back to the Cube and get coordinates to another known black-crystal site,” Donalla said, pushing herself off her perch and brushing dust from her trousers.

  “It’ll take us three hours to get back,” Killa heard herself protesting. “Why, I could be—”

  “Circling the area unprofitably for hours, days, more likely,” Donalla said. “Let’s do it the easy way, with another set of coordinates. Huh?”

  Killa considered this, sweeping aside all the arguments she was ranging against the common sense Donalla was speaking. She owed it to Lars. He had been right. She had some black to return with. She shouldn’t waste time. She should cut where they knew there was more.

  “You’re right. Absolutely right. We go back. We do it Lars’s way.”

  Lars was pleased with the four she brought back, disappointed by Donalla’s failure, and relieved that they had returned. He had other coordinates for Killa to use.

  “I don’t really like this,” she told him. “It still feels like claim jumping.”

  Lars grinned at her. “You won’t say that when you have to share the proceeds, Sunny.”

  “There’s that, too, of course,” she said, making a face at him.

  She went out by herself within the hour, after getting a severe lecture from Lars about remembering to stow black the instant she cut it.