Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line Page 7

  “I got the notion on Sherpa, not in the cave. I could have understood some sort of a connection if I’d thought of it then.”

  “You probably did,” Lars replied. “You just forgot it. And don’t snap at me over your lapsus memoriae! Let’s get this experiment on the pad.”

  Even as he spoke he touched the lock release and it cycled open. Oxygen left the airlock with a whoosh. They stepped out onto Opal’s cindery hide and followed the bright paint markings to Hungry Junk’s precinct.

  “Hey, improvement,” Lars said as soon as they had descended to the level of the cavern. The blue radiance, edging toward white, made their suit lights unnecessary. “Wow!”

  “Wow what?” Brendan asked when the silence went on for fifty seconds.

  “You’re sure your instrumentation doesn’t read anything?” Lars asked.

  “Not a thing. What occasioned your unusual exhortation?” Brendan asked flippantly.

  “We fed it too much,” Killashandra replied softly.

  “Naw,” Lars said, “but we fed it good.”

  “Tell me, do!” was Brendan’s slightly sarcastic response.

  “Sorry, Bren,” Killashandra replied, “but it’s a bloody shame you can’t see. Junk’s covered the entire cave, and there are long fingers that we’ll probably find have descended to the next level. It’s more beautiful than ever, all colors now, reds and oranges and yellows, as well as the blues, dark greens, and purples that it originally had. They seem to flow in and out of patterns …”

  “Like fractals,” Lars added, sounding oddly languid. “I could watch—hey, what’d you do that for?” She had given him such a push that he had nearly lost his balance.

  “You were becoming thralled. Junk’s hypnotic,” Killa said, her voice sharp. “Maybe even addictive.”

  “Should we give it crystal then?” Lars asked, his tone crisp and alert again.

  “That’s what we came to do. So let’s do it!”

  “All the crystals to old Hungry Junk?”

  “No, just one,” Killashandra said. “Let’s see what happens.”

  She pointed to a large swag of the Junk that was flowing toward the floor. Lars took the largest crystal, the B-flat, and, holding it in the calipers, inserted the blue. Junk obligingly flowed over it.

  The two crystal singers held their breath as they watched.

  “Yup!” Killashandra let out a triumphant crow. “It can’t eat crystal.”

  “It can’t?” Brendan asked. “What’s it doing?”

  “Holding it in its cheek,” Lars said flippantly, grinning at Killashandra, “having a good taste.” The Junk was rippling back and forth across the crystal insertion, going through all the colors of its visible spectrum without altering the outline of the cube. Then it seemed to push the cube upward, toward the crown in the center of the ceiling. Though apparently drawn deep into the opalescence, the crystal patently retained its integrity.

  “Now what?” Brendan asked when the singers had nothing further to report.

  “Look!” In astonishment Killashandra pointed to the half-open sack of crystals at her feet. They pulsed from midblue to dark and then paled. “Damn!” She dropped to her knees beside them. “Are they singing? Can’t hear a bloody thing.”

  Tentatively Lars placed the tip of his gloved finger on the faceted surface of the nearest one.

  “Vibration all right!” He grinned in triumph. “Communications established?”

  “Could be, but pulsations and color alterations are no more intelligible than drum codes—until a code or even a language can be established. And semanticists we are not,” Killashandra said, a degree of regret in her voice.

  “Then let us by all means leave it to the experts,” Brendan said. “Around such an unknown quantity, I find that I get almost as nervous for you as I do for Boira.”

  “Why, thanks, Bren,” Killashandra said, touched by the ship’s concern. “But I don’t think we’re in any danger.”

  “You are edible,” he replied succinctly.

  Killashandra laughed and Lars grinned at her.

  “I wonder if any of the other Junk has expanded.”

  “We only fed this one,” she replied. “Let’s go see.”

  Lars picked up the remaining crystal, which continued to glow until they had entered the airlock and Brendan had lifted from the immediate vicinity of Big Hungry. They checked the other locations and found that no other formation had increased as significantly as Hungry Junk, although all had begun to flow downward again.

  “Got anything on board to feed the starving?” Lars asked.

  “In point of fact, I do,” Brendan said. “Penwyn had nonrecyclable wastes he did not care to dispose of on-planet …”

  “Dirty stuff?”

  “Obliging I am; stupid I’m not! No, most of it’s clean litter from the spacefield. I thought we might use the refuse to better effect.”

  “Indeed we can,” Killa said, pleased. “I think the Junk’s starved too long.”

  Lars was dubious. “We might be making more problems …”

  “We might,” she said with a shrug, “but I can’t not.”

  “I’ve kept a file on the metallic and organic content of what we’re feeding it,” Brendan said.

  “Then we do a comparison, a standard scientific practice,” Lars replied, dismissing his reservations. “We feed four metallic and four organic.”

  It was tiring work, even in .7 gravity, distributing and feeding eight very hungry opalescents. As they trudged back to the 1066, both singers felt a curious satisfaction in the heightened glow and vigorous flow as the Junk ingested their meals.

  When they had finished, the two singers returned briefly to the Big Hungry to check on the crystal.

  “Not even Junk can eat Ballybran crystal,” Killashandra said proudly.

  “The cubes you left in the lock, however,” Brendan remarked, “have remained dormant.”

  “Too bad we didn’t have any dirty waste to give the Junk,” Lars said, “to see if it could digest half-lifes.”

  Killashandra regarded him warily. “You do want to live dangerously, don’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t think we’ve done any lasting harm. How long can one good meal last Junk? I think we leave this to the experts. Singers we are; scientists we’re not.”

  “We’re a lot smarter than that exploratory team who found Junk,” Killa said.

  “Are we?”

  “Who can say at this juncture?” Brendan said, deftly diverting an argument with his outrageous pun. Lars and Killa groaned in unison as he went on. “You’ve done more than you were required to. And, while I hate to press you …” he added tentatively.

  “Yes, yes, of course,” Killashandra said, suppressing any comment on the fact that he was indeed pressuring them. “You’re anxious to collect Boira.”

  “I think we’ve got more than enough to prove to Lanzecki that we earned our fee,” Lars added, giving her a meaningful nod.

  She exhaled restively, swinging her arms indecisively. But the men were right: they’d done more than was expected even if not what had been anticipated, finding a Heptite use of the Junk. Its fate would now be decided by others.

  Lars moved to the exit arch, and with one more backward look at the surging flow of the Big Hungry’s questing “finger,” she followed. But the feeling that they hadn’t done enough remained with her.

  The BB-1066 returned them to Shankill Moon Base and deposited them with many expressions of pleasure at their company and hopes to see them again. Wryly Killashandra heard the undertone of polite impatience in his courtesies and nudged Lars to hurry the disembarkation process. Brendan wanted to return, full speed, to Regulus Base, where he would be rejoined by Boira.

  They had the pencil files of their report for Lanzecki in their carisaks, which bulged with souvenirs from their months on Sherpa.

  Periodically Killashandra cleared out her storage space of items that she could not remember acquiring. Now she couldn
’t recall if she had corners into which to stuff the new additions. She hated discarding her belongings until they brought back no memories of where they had been used. When she did get rid of things, she preferred to do it when Lars wasn’t around. His memory was much better than hers, and he could remember where and when clothes or equipment had been purchased. And why.

  They caught the first shuttle down to Ballybran. It was half-full of singers. To the three she recognized she gave a brief nod; Lars smiled at most, though he did not get a response from all.

  “Sometimes they act as if they’re going to their own executions,” he said.

  Evidently he said that often enough that her reply was automatic: “Sometimes they are.”

  That was true enough to be sobering. There was no chatter, no merriment, no laughter at all, and very few grins when singers returned to the planet on which they earned enough to indulge in whatever fancies rocked their jollies. The ambience today was enough to depress anyone—except Lars, who was smiling tenderly at the screen’s magnificent view of the broad oceans on the day side. He must be the only singer who enjoyed another aspect of the Guild homeworld, Killa reflected. He was smiling because he could look forward to sailing again.

  “You kept your word,” she murmured to him. “You choose the next one.”

  He grinned absently at her. “Hope Pat put her back in the water after Passover.”

  “We won’t have time now for a cruise.”

  His hand covered hers on the armrest, and his smile was tender and deeply affectionate. “I like the ‘we,’ Sunny!” His fingers squeezed, and she, too, was suffused with loving warmth for him. They did make a very good team! Then he exhaled. “Lanzecki’ll probably have us both out in the Ranges before the morning.”

  The shuttle was crossing into the night zone as it spiraled down to Ballybran’s surface.

  “More than likely.” Killashandra felt no resistance to the prospect. The need to sing crystal had become more insistent during the last leg of their return voyage.

  When she had last checked their credit balance, it was sizable enough to reassure her against any eventuality—not finding one of their old lodes of good crystal, a sudden storm flushing them out of the Ranges, even more damage to the sled, though that she intended to avoid. The last accident had caused her extreme aggravation. So asinine to have been caught in an avalanche! Lars had maintained that no blame could be attached to them; she railed that they ought to have checked the stability of the projection that had decided to drop on their sled.

  She even remembered the piercing, almost pitying, look he had given her. “Look, Killa, you can’t be everything in the Ranges. You’ve got weather sense that has saved our hides more times than I care to count; you’re a superb cutter, and you’ve never cracked a crystal pitching it. Neither of us is geologist enough to have known that projection was unstable. Leave it!”

  She remembered his reassurance now. More vivid and embarrassing was her remembered ignominy at having to be hoisted out of the Ranges. She would be grateful when that memory was expunged from her mind by her return to the Ranges. Soon enough only Lars would have access to that embarrassment. Time after time, she had heard him making reports to his private file. He wasn’t likely to tease her about the avalanche—she’d give him that—but she almost wished he wouldn’t commit every damn detail to electronic memory.

  The shuttle landed them, and everyone filed out glumly. Only Lars seemed in good spirits. Then the port duty officer signaled to Lars and Killashandra.

  “Lanzecki said you’re to report to him immediately, forthwith and now!”

  “When have I heard that before?” Lars replied with a grin, clipping Killashandra under the elbow as he guided her toward the lift that would take them to the executive level.

  As they entered the administration office, Bollam gave them a brief nod of acknowledgment.

  “I really don’t like that man,” Killa murmured to Lars as she placed her hand on the door plate. “He’s a dork! A real dork! I wouldn’t trust him in the Ranges, and I don’t have Lanzecki’s problem.”

  Lars jiggled her elbow to move on as the door slid open. It was as if the Guild Master hadn’t moved from the position in which they had last seen him. Except, Killa noticed as he raised his head at their approach, he looked more tired and less … less substantial. She shook the notion out of her head.

  “Good work,” he said, nodding at them.

  “Good work?” Killa was astonished. “But the Junk isn’t something the Guild can use.”

  Lanzecki shrugged. “One less complication. And this Junk of yours couldn’t digest Ballybran crystal?” That was more a proud statement than a question, and a slight smile pulled at the corner of Lanzecki’s thin mouth.

  He was aging, Killa thought, noticing thin vertical lines on his upper lip, the deeper marks from nose to mouth, and the discoloration under his eyes.

  “You’re working too hard,” she said. Lanzecki raised his eyebrows inquiringly. “That dork at the door’s no help. You need someone more like Trag. He was efficient—”

  She stopped, seeing Lanzecki’s expression alter to a courteous mask that rebuked her for her impudence.

  “Look, anything we can do to help?” Lars asked. He glanced at Killashandra, not for permission but for her to reinforce his offer of assistance.

  Lars never had learned the lesson Moksoon had taught her—that one asked, and expected, no help from anyone in the Ranges. Only … the Cube was not the Ranges.

  “Neither of us have to get out for a while yet,” she replied, though it wouldn’t be long before an undeniable urgency began to pulse through her veins. Helpfulness and cooperation were not singer characteristics, but even she could remember being obliged to—and alternately infuriated by—Lanzecki’s demands on her, and on herself and Lars. However, she was currently grateful for the benefits of the intriguing Junk assignment, and thus in a mood to be generous.

  “I appreciate that very much indeed.”

  “Isn’t there anyone else more suitable than Bollam?” she demanded.

  Lanzecki shrugged. “He has his uses. Now …” He turned immediately to red-sheeted Priority notices. “These can no longer be ignored, Lars. And Killa, Enthor’s gone and his replacement needs to be overseen. You’ve a finely tuned sense for crystal’s potential. Can you see your way clear to assisting in the Sorting Shed until the woman’s less tentative? She’s got to be more confident that her judgment’s right. I can’t be hauled in to mediate her evaluations with disgruntled singers.”

  Killa made a face. “So I’m Trag’s stand-in?”

  Lanzecki gave her a level look. “In that aspect of our craft, you were always his superior.”

  “Well, well,” she said, and would have teased him had she not seen the flicker in his eyes that suggested she restrain her flippancy. “Any singers due in?”

  “The Tower says that five are on their way back. Storm gathering over the southeast tip of the Ranges. Met says it’s just a squall.”

  Killa snorted in disgust. Even “just a squall” on Ballybran could be mortally dangerous to any singers caught in it. The high winds that gusted over the canyons stroked mind-blowing resonances out of the crystalline Ranges.

  “Who’s the new Sorter?”

  “Woman name of Clodine,” Lanzecki replied. “Don’t ride her, Killashandra. Her main fault is being new at the game.”

  Lars cocked an eyebrow at her and winked conspiratorially. She caught the warning that she would do more good to be patient. She shook her hair back over her shoulder in denial of the reminder and, on her mettle, strode out of the room.

  Clodine greeted Killashandra with a nervous blend of gratitude and caution. Sorters, whose particular adjustment to the Ballybran symbiont affected their vision to the point where they did not need any mechanical aid to see intrusions and flaws in crystal, did not suffer the memory deterioration that singers did. Each of the other four Sorters on duty gave Killashandra a pleasant nod o
r wave as she made her way to Clodine’s station—a station that had been Enthor’s since before Killa had become a member of the Heptite Guild. She would miss him, too: they’d had some spectacular arguments over his evaluation of the tons of crystal she had presented for his inspection. But she had known him to be exceedingly competent, and fair. The opinion had survived throughout all her trips in the Ranges. Two faces she always remembered, no matter how crystal-mazed she was: Enthor’s and Lanzecki’s.

  Clodine would have to be very good indeed to replace Enthor in Killashandra’s estimation. Ironic to find herself in the position of teaching the woman all the skills she herself had learned from the old Sorter. But Killa did know crystal.

  The tall, slender girl—Killa judged her to be young in real chronology—kept blinking, her eyes going from one state to the other. Involuntarily she shuddered when the magnification of her enhanced sight made what should have been ordinary images unnerving to behold. She was an attractive girl, too, which might be why Lanzecki had enlisted Killa’s aid. There had been a time when Killa would have been intensely jealous of anyone who took Lanzecki’s interest, but those days were a long time back in the decades that had not included Lars Dahl. Clodine had lovely blond hair, a lot of it, neatly confined in a thick net. She had the fair complexion of the genuine blonde, and midbrown eyes with light flecks. Yes, very attractive. Some of Killa’s unexpected anxiety for Lanzecki’s aging dissipated. He still had an eye for a pretty girl and a lissome shape.

  “I’m Killashandra Ree,” she said, holding out her hand to Clodine. That was a habit most humanoid worlds had adopted, and she had been doing it so much on Sherpa that it had become natural. Singers fresh out of the Ranges never touched anyone if they could help it. Crystal shock sometimes had an adverse affect on others. But Clodine was too new to Ballybran to notice anything out of the ordinary. “Lanzecki sent me down as backup to this grimy lot on their way in. He doesn’t want to scare you off the job at too early a date.”

  The crystal singer noticed that the worn scales and equipment that had served Enthor for so many decades had been replaced. Even the metal worktop, once scraped and scored by hundreds of thousands of cut-crystal forms, was pristine.