Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line Read online

  She paused by the broad bunk to see how Lars looked—his face was no longer gaunt so she thought he’d awaken soon. As soon as she had closed the door and was out in the short corridor, Brendan gave her a good-morning.

  “Is it?”

  “Well, it is morning, Nihal time, early morning.”

  “Oh! Yes, Nihal, of course. That G2—straight on till morning. How far away is it, Bren?” She was in the galley now, making herself a hot caffeine-rich drink.

  “Relatively not far at my present speed.”

  “And it’s not a water world?”

  “It has water, of course, but mountain sports are featured.”

  “Hmmm, in that case, I’m not averse to it. Haven’t done any hiking or skiing or climbing in—well, I can’t remember when.”

  “There are lakes …”

  “Lakes don’t fascinate Lars as much as seas do,” Killa said with some feeling.

  “There are seas, but not much traffic on them. The fishing is limited to shoreline nettings, though there are said to be some tasty bivalves.”

  “Hmmm. You know, I’m hungry but not ravenous, if you appreciate the distinction.”

  “I appreciate the distinction, Ki.” Brendan chuckled. “What might you be hungry for?”

  Aware that she couldn’t overburden her system, she settled on a light meal of juice and cereal, which she took from the galley into the main room.

  “Shards! But we get to be sloppy eaters, don’t we,” she said with chagrin, noticing the food stains on the arm of her usual chair. “Anything I can use to wash these out, Bren? I don’t really want to hand you back to Boira in less than the condition you arrived in. That’s not shipshape.”

  “And Bristol fashion?”

  Killa laughed. Then she noticed the view on the main screen. “Muhlah! What’s that?”

  “Ah, that is the very red Mira variable R. Leporis. It has a four-hundred-and-thirty-two-day cycle. A type N, and with any luck, we’ll see it at its hottest. The pulsations should be magnificent as it begins to contract.”

  Killa squinted. “It’s very bright.”

  “I can darken the screen if it is visually uncomfortable.”

  “Hmmm, would you? Ah, thanks. That is undoubtedly the very reddest object I’ve ever seen. What are you seeing?”

  “The emission spectra. Stupendous!”

  They both, in their separate ways, considered the spectacle blazing light-years away but so vivid.

  “Of course, if you find nothing of interest on Nihal Three, I’d be happy to take you elsewhere.”

  Killashandra snapped her fingers. “Just like that?”

  “It’s like this, Ki,” and Brendan explained what he had offered Lars.

  The crystal singer whooped and fell against the back of the chair in a paroxysm of laughter.

  “Our own brain ship? Acting the yacht? You’ve got a deal, man!” She gasped the phrases out between spasms of laughter and ended up wiping her eyes of tears. “You really mean it?” she asked, turning toward Brendan’s column.

  “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t.”

  “Don’t huff, Bren, honestly, I didn’t mean to offend. But don’t you cost a lot?”

  “I only need fuel, landing fees, and whatever supplies you and Lars require. To be sure, my larder’s a bit bare right now.”

  “I can well imagine. You were champion to feed us as you did, Bren. I haven’t eaten better during any Passover I can remember.” Then practicality gripped her. “I think you’d better tell me just how much your fuel and general landing fees run to. We got a great fee for risking skin and symbiont on Opal, but …”

  Brendan then ran through some figures for her so that she realized the idea was feasible. In fact, downright exciting.

  “Of course, we’ve got to get our report back to Lanzecki. Does Nihal Three have black crystals?”

  “It does.”

  A shiver ran up Killashandra’s spine. She didn’t like to use black-crystal communications. One of the few crystal singers who could locate and cut black crystal, she was unusually sensitive to its presence in cut or raw form. Especially since she had installed the black-crystal communications system for the Trundomoux: she had never managed to bury the memory of the soul-shattering shock of activating the king crystal. She had asked Lanzecki about that lingering pull, but he hadn’t had any answers. Whatever it was, it made her wary of actually using black crystal—especially when she wanted to forget crystal for a while.

  “There are significant bodies of water down there,” Killashandra said as Brendan approached their destination.

  “We can go somewhere else,” Lars said to pacify her. “I didn’t chose Nihal Three, remember. It was your ‘straight on till morning’ …”

  His partner glowered at him.

  “The chief recreational activity of the planet Sherpa is mountain climbing,” Brendan said, raising his voice to distract them. “Downhill and cross-country skiing, skidoo and other snow-based sports, canoeing and kayaking on only designated rivers, trekking on foot or mounted, hunting and fishing. The catering is deemed one of the highlights of the planet and, indeed, wears the Four Comets of Gastronomical Excellence.”

  Killashandra groaned.

  “A little exercise would improve your appetite,” Brendan remarked. “Although I never thought I’d have to say that to the pair of you!”

  Lars chuckled, and even Killa managed a grin. Then Lars regarded her queryingly, his expression blandly conciliatory.

  “Oh, all right. We do mountain sports first,” she said in assent, then waggled her finger at him. “I might do some canoeing, but you’re on the bow paddle.”

  “Landing fees are moderate,” Brendan said happily. “This won’t cost you much,” he added cheerfully. “You can send in your report, and I can get an update on Boira’s condition. Ah, I’m getting a signal. Oh, really?” he added in surprise. “Penwyn, how good to hear your voice!” To the astonished singers, he added, “The planetary manager was in my class! I’m very glad we decided to come here.”

  Although Killashandra worked on the official report with Lars, she let him take it to the Communications Center. When they had passed it in the ground vehicle on their way into the settlement, she had experienced the frisson in her guts that told her she had cut the system’s king crystal. She had returned as quickly as possible to the B&B. Now, in an atavistic burst, she scrubbed the food stains off the chairs while she waited for Lars to return. When he seemed to have been gone rather longer than the dispatch of a message should have taken, she began to feel ill used, then irritated and finally worried.

  “This isn’t an overregulated planet, is it? Crystal singers aren’t forbidden?” she asked Brendan.

  “Not at all. It’s a very loosely settled place, though there’s a fair competition between recreational facilities to attract visitors. Penwyn handles what administration there is and arbitrates any disputes, as well, but it’s an orderly world.”

  At last Lars came back with promotional holos crammed into every pocket of his shipsuit. He was plainly delighted as he dumped them onto the worktop by the viewer and gestured dramatically at Killashandra.

  “Take your pick! Reports filed—state of the art com-tower, I’ll tell you that, with your friend, Penwyn, handling the transmission, Bren. Guess you won’t mind how long we’re away, will you?”

  “Hmmm, no, of course I won’t,” Brendan answered vaguely. He was busy chatting up Penwyn.

  During the day that it took the two crystal singers to decide where to go first—eventually they settled on cross-country skiing to get their muscles limbered up for downhill runs—they didn’t hear much from Brendan.

  “Must be making up for the last fifty years,” Lars said.

  “Must you measure time!” she replied in a burst of irritation. What did time have to do with anything? It was today that mattered, and how well they spent it, how much they enjoyed it, or, if they were working in the Ranges, how much they could cut in a
day!

  Lars regarded her in surprise and then apologized in such a perfunctory manner that he aggravated her further. The lingering stress put a bit of a damper on their journey to the resort Killashandra had chosen. But once at the ’port that serviced the area—a long narrow valley amidst the most magnificent mountain scenery—her mood lifted.

  The ’port was above the snowline in the mountainous rim of Sherpa’s main continent, Nepal. They were collected at the door by the soberly welcoming rep of the snotel they had booked into.

  “I am Mashid,” he told them, making a low, respectful bow. Dark almond-shaped eyes did not so much as blink as he continued his greeting. “I have been appointed to see that your sojourn with us is all that you desired.”

  Killashandra and Lars exchanged quick looks.

  “We’re remarkably easy to please,” Killa said, “so long as you don’t show me any large bodies of water.” She dug Lars in the ribs.

  “All water at this altitude is frozen,” Mashid replied stolidly.

  “What do we drink then?” Lars asked with a bare twitch of his lips. “Melted snow?”

  “Drinking water”—and Mashid’s attitude toward drinking that was contemptuous—“is of course supplied as needed from protected reservoirs.”

  “I was joking,” Lars said.

  “As you wish.” Mashid tendered another bow. Sweat had appeared on his forehead, for he was bundled in furs and thick fur-topped boots.

  “Lead on,” Lars suggested, gesturing to the door. He and Killashandra had bought outerwear suitable to the mountain climate but, though it had been pricey in the spaceport shop, neither jacket was as lush as Mashid’s apparel. They learned later that he had caught, tanned, and made his own garments as most of the mountain people here did.

  Turning with yet another bow, Mashid led them outside to an animal-drawn sleigh, brightly painted in orange and black stripes with the name of their snotel blazoned in huge letters on its sides. A pair of antlered, rough-coated beasts were harnessed to it, stamping their cloven hooves in the snow. They were nearly as long as the sleigh.

  Lars and Killashandra were gestured into the passenger seat, and an immense fur robe was deftly tucked about them. Mashid swung expertly up onto the driver’s seat and flicked a whip at the rumps of the beasts. The speed of their departure nearly gave Lars and Killashandra whiplash.

  The pace was exhilarating; so was the crisp air, and the unusual method of transportation. Killa laughed aloud in sheer delight. She couldn’t remember ever seeing so much snow before. She almost asked Lars if they had and then, as abruptly, didn’t want to know: she wanted less to know if she had seen snow than if Lars could remember if they had. Then he turned a happy smile to her and it didn’t matter. She was here, with Lars, and they had months before they had to even think of crystal and Ballybran. She was then totally distracted by the cold wind nipping at her ears and clamped her gloved hands together to protect them.

  In their four months at the snotel, they attempted every single snow sport available, including races on single skis and on sno-bikes down almost vertical slopes. They missed being buried in an avalanche by the length of a ski; they skate-danced, snow-surfed and -planed, and went spelunking through ice and rock caverns of incredible beauty. They absorbed Mashid’s instructions and improved on them, until eventually they surprised approval—even compliments—from the sturdy Nepalese, who began to view their near-indestructibility with awe. They doubted he had ever met crystal singers before or knew that their minor bruises, lacerations, and contusions healed overnight, leaving them fully able to cope with the new day’s ordeals. They almost regretted leaving him behind in the mountains.

  But they had done all they could of the snow sports, and so they moved from the mountains to the vast bowl of the internal plains of Nepal. There they did take to the water and acquired a new guide without the imperturbability of Mashid. With him, they canoed through tortuous canyons on flumes of water, shooting dire-toothed rapids.

  Once in a while they checked in with Brendan, who informed them that he was quite content and they needn’t hurry. So they hunted for two months in the lake districts with a party of mixed planetarials, and rode and camped along the coastline for a month with another, during which time Lars so pointedly said nothing about sailing that Killashandra was sure she would burst with not hearing the words he didn’t speak.

  “We’ve done everything else,” Killashandra said the night before they were to turn inland, back to the vicinity of the spaceport. “We really can’t leave Sherpa without sailing, can we?”

  “Can we not?” Lars retorted placidly.

  “If you wanted to, we could.”

  “Wrong,” he said, and with his index finger pressed her nose in. “If you wanted to, we could.”

  Perversely, she ducked away from him and rolled off the bed, unaccountably annoyed with his self-sacrifice.

  “It was my turn to pick,” she said in a savage tone.

  “Hey, honey-love …” Lars sprang from the bed to catch her in his arms, his face anxious. “Don’t be like this. It was your turn to pick the place and activities, and I’ve enjoyed everything we’ve done together.”

  She struggled in his arms, furious with his acquiescence, even with his concern.

  “Hey, hey …” He tried to gentle her, pulling her against his bare body. “Need a radiant bath?” He stroked her to judge crystal resonance in her body.

  “I don’t need one. I don’t need crystal that badly yet. Ahhhhh!” And her irascibility disappeared as she arched in his arms. “Crystal! We didn’t try crystal.”

  “Try crystal? Where? What are you talking about, Killa?”

  “We never gave the Junk any crystal.”

  “It would have absorbed—oh, I see what you mean!” He blinked in sudden comprehension. “D’you really think Ballybran crystal wouldn’t be absorbed by the Junk?” he asked, catching a bit of her excitement despite his skepticism. “What good would that do?”

  “Communication. A lot easier than rapping out rhythm. There’d be a useful link with it, if nothing else.” Killashandra was as tense with eagerness as she had been with irritation.

  “We’ve done our job,” Lars protested. “We’ve acquitted the assignment …”

  “But we didn’t find out anything.”

  “We found out the Junk is not a Heptite concern.”

  “But we didn’t try crystal!” she repeated, struggling to release his grip.

  “Well, if it means that much to you, let’s see what Brendan says about taking us back there—with crystal. There, there, love-heart.” Lars soothed her with hand and voice until she relaxed against him again. “Only where will we get some Ballybran crystal here?”

  “They’ve black crystal …”

  “Huh? You think they’ll loan black for this escapade?”

  Killa glared at him. “It’s not an escapade. It’s a point of investigation we neglected to make.”

  “Well, if they use black crystal, they use others,” Lars said, releasing her and marching to the comconsole. “And if they use others, they also abuse them and there’ll be sour crystal somewhere on this planet. We can offer to retune, and take the slivers as part of our fee.”

  “We can’t give the Junk sour crystal.”

  “I don’t think anything would give it indigestion,” Lars remarked, pausing as he punched in Brendan’s on-planet code. “Any scraps large enough can be tuned to some sort of pitch. You know, it might be fun to tune crystal when we don’t have to.”

  Brendan was willing enough to return to Opal, though Killashandra could hear the reservations in his tone.

  “I can’t hang about there too long,” he said, “and get you back to Ballybran in time to collect Boira. She’s doing splendidly in rehab and retraining.” Pride in his partner’s recuperation colored his pleasant voice.

  “That’s very good news indeed, Bren,” Killa said, meaning it. “We just want to see what effect our crystal might have on the Ju
nk.”

  “It’ll probably gulp it down like it did everything else and lick its chops at the taste.”

  “Only sound has any effect on Ballybran crystal,” Killashandra said with considerable pride. “And there’s no sound on an airless planet.”

  “Possibly,” Brendan said. “And we didn’t try diamond either.”

  “Ballybran crystal’s tougher than any diamond ever compressed from carbon!”

  “My, we are loyal!” Lars said facetiously.

  Killashandra gave a sniff. “Well, there isn’t any substance like Ballybran crystal anywhere else in the universe.”

  “Except”—and Lars’s eyes glinted with teasing—“possibly the Junk!”

  Crystal resonance was beginning to get to Killashandra as Brendan took them back to the Opal system in one Singularity Jump. It had started when she and Lars retuned to a minor fifth the sour dominant midblue crystals that Penwyn had procured for them. As Lars had thought, there were quite a few soured crystals on the planet. Though Penwyn didn’t ask them to, they tuned them all—the work of three days for such experienced singers—and he canceled Brendan’s landing fees. But the sessions had an effect on Killashandra, and she spent a full day in the radiant-fluid tub.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” she insisted to Lars and Brendan when they were too solicitous of her. “Being near black always does it.”

  Lars desisted then and must have told Brendan to leave off inquiring, for neither of them said another word until the BB-1066 landed near the Big Hungry Junk—as Killa dubbed it—with the sweet-tuned slivers of crystal that they had salvaged.

  “Old home week,” she said with unforced gaiety as they suited up.

  “Do we know what we’re doing, Killa?” Lars asked as he settled his helmet over his head.

  “No.”

  “D’you know why you’re doing it?”

  “No.”

  “Maybe the Junk is sentient.”

  “You mean, some sort of psionic emanations?” Killashandra was not only skeptical but incredulous.

  “Why else would you have such a harebrained notion to feed Ballybran crystal to an opalescent rib?” he demanded.