Crystal Line Read online

  "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.

  Chapter 4

  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 from 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 sizeable 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 acknowledgement.

  "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 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 res
train 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 or 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 blonde 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 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 effect 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.

  Clodine gave a tentative smile, and her eyes flicked into the alter state and then back again. "Oh, Gods, I'll never get the hang of it."

  "Make your eyes very round when you want to stay in normal visual mode," Killashandra said in a low voice, aware that the other Sorters were watching them.

  Clodine tried to smile and widen her eyes, then groaned because her eyes altered despite her efforts.

  "It's surprising how soon you will become accustomed to the alteration," Killashandra said in her most sincere "buck up there" tone. "Ah, here they come!"

  "They do?" Clodine looked up at the wraparound screens that showed the as-yet empty Hangar where the singers' sleds would land. The latest batch of Guild apprentices waited there to help unload the precious crystal. The Met screens showed that the squall, having wreaked brief havoc in the Ranges, was passing harmlessly out to sea, half a continent away. The Hangar crew was lounging about. When storm systems raged close to the Guild's massive cube, their duties became far more urgent and perilous—even to closing the great Hangar doors to incoming singers rather than risk damage to those already safe within. More times than she cared to remember—probably many more times than she could remember—Killa had been the last singer to get in over the interlocking jaws of the great portal.

  "See?" Killa said, directing Clodine's attention to the long-range screen where the first of the incoming sleds was just now visible as a speeding blip.

  "Oh!" Clodine blinked nervously and, shaking her head in distress, looked about to weep.

  "Relax," Killa drawled and pushed herself up to sit on the brand-new worktop. "They're a good half hour out—unless they've had a good scare!" She grinned with amusement and saw Clodine relax a bit. "Where you from?"

  "I don't imagine you've ever heard of my home system . . ." the Sorter began apologetically.

  "Try me," Killa replied with a laugh.

  "A planet named Scarteen—"

  "In the Huntsman system," Killashandra said, oddly pleased by the girl's delight in her knowing. "Nice place. Good currents in the Great Oceans."

  "You've sailed on Scarteen?"

  "I've sailed—" Killa paused, censored the ennui in her tone, and smiled kindly at the child, "—on most worlds that are hospitable to our species."

  "You sail? I mean, sheet-sail, not motor cruise?"

  "Wind-sail, of course." She flicked one shoulder, consigning motor cruising to a suitable nadir. "And you'll find there's good sailing here, too. In fact, if we've time before we go out in the Ranges, my partner and I would be happy to take you out on our ship, show you some of the tricks of sailing Ballybran's currents and coasts."

  "Oh, would you?"

  Once again, Lars's avocation won her unexpected friendship. Killa sighed and filled in the time until the sleds arrived with sea tales that were honorably unembellished. They didn't need to be! Sorters might not need to leave Ballybran as often as singers, but they took holidays—especially during Passover storms. It didn't hurt to reassure the girl that there was more to life as a Heptite Guild member than remembering to widen her eyes to avoid blinking to crystal-gaze.

  Clodine was, as Lanzecki suspected, suffering only from inexperience in dealing with Range-crazed singers. Killashandra's presence quelled the other singer's urge to argue with Clodine's estimate of his crystals—which were a rather good midgreen, currently in scarce supply, so even without arguing he got a better price than Killa knew he had anticipated. He would have had no cause to berate a Sorter, new or experienced, but arguing price with your Sorter got to be an ingrained habit with singers. Some Sorters enjoyed persiflage, and/or getting the better of the singer.

  Timing was so often the deciding factor in the value of a cut. If the market was glutted, the price was understandably low. Some colors were always worth the premium price, like black crystals, which were so valuable as communication links. The pale pinks were always low market, but a fine seven-shaft cut of even pink could be valuable in an industrial complex.

  When the singer had left, grumbling desultorily, Killashandra touched Clodine's shoulder and grinned at her woeful expression.

  "He's all wind and piss. Most of us are. You know your grading, the latest market price is what's on your terminal. Don't let 'em hassle you. Part of it's coming in sudden from the Ranges without as much as you thought you would cut this time out. I'm always sure I should have been able to cut longer and more. Most of it's pure singer cussedness. Ignore it, considering the source! Enthor train you up?" she added, for something of the way Clodine had handled crystal reminded her of the old man.

  "Yes." Clodine's eyes widened in astonishment. "How did you know that?"

  Killa
sniffed. "Enthor loved crystal. He passed that on to you. Remember that the next time a singer gives you a hard time. You—" Killashandra prodded Clodine lightly in the chest—"love crystal. I can see that in how you handle it. Singers—" she turned her thumb into her own sternum—"invariably hate crystal."

  "You do?"

  "For all that it does for us and to us, yes." And, feeling that that sounded like a great exit line, Killashandra left the Sorter Shed.

  Lars had not returned to their apartment. She gave herself a long soak in the water tub; then, wearing a loose robe, she began to unpack the carisaks that had been delivered while she was overseeing Clodine. When she got hungry and Lars still hadn't returned, she tapped out a "where is" code on the terminal.

  "Here," Lars's voice responded as his features formed on the screen.

  "Where?"

  "Lanzecki's," he replied, as if she should have known. "C'mon up."

  Puzzling over that, Killa changed and returned to the Guild Master's domain.

  The pair were sitting at the table where Killa had often dined alone with Lanzecki. There was a third place set, and as Lanzecki gestured her to be seated, Lars rose and met her halfway, giving her a quick embrace and kiss.

  Wondering what this was all about, Killa smoothly took her place.

  "We waited," Lars said, and he nodded at the array of sumptuous-looking dishes.

  "How did Clodine do?" Lanzecki asked, forestalling any query from her.

  "She's fine. I told her not to let singers get up her nose. Enthor trained her. She loves crystal. I told her singers hate it. Opened her eyes!" Killa grinned.

  "In more ways than one, I trust?" Lanzecki said, quirking his eyebrow. He was being Lanzecki-the-man, as he had been in their old loverly days—a pose he had never before assumed in Lars's presence. For some reason it disturbed her.

  "Well, that's the trick, isn't it?" she replied, knowing better than to show her surprise. "Widening the eyes to prevent the alteration. She was only nervous."