Crystal Singer

“Go on,” she said, a

“I know what they are. How did you?” Enthor's indecision was gone, and he stared, almost accusingly, into her eyes.

“I felt them. Open it. What did Keborgen cut?”

His unearthly eyes still on hers, Enthor opened the box and lifted out a crystal. Killashandra caught her breath at the sight of the dull, irregular 15 centimeter segment. Consciously, she had to make her lungs expel air as Enthor reverently unpacked two additional pieces that fit against the first.

“He cut well,” Enthor said, scrutinizing the trio keenly. “He cut very well. Just missing flaw. That would account for the shapes.”

“He has cut his last,” the deep voice of the Guild Master said.

Startled, Killashandra whirled and realized that Lanzecki must have arrived moments before. He nodded to her and then beckoned to someone in the storage area.

“Bring the rest of Keborgen's cut.”

“Is there more black in it?” Enthor asked Killashandra as he felt carefully about in the plaspacking.

Killashandra was vibrantly aware of Lanzecki's intense gaze.

“In that box or the cargo?”

“Either,” Lanzecki said, his eyes flickering at her attempt to temporize.

“Not in the box,” she said even as she ran her hand along the plasfoam side. She swallowed nervously, glancing sideways at Lanzecki's imposing figure. His clothing, which she had once thought dull, glinted in a richness of thread and subtle design very much in keeping with his rank. She swallowed a second time as he gave a brief nod of his head and the six cartons from Keborgen's sled were deposited on Enthor's table.

“Any more black crystal?” Enthor asked.

She swallowed a third time, remembered that the habit had irritated her in Shillawn, and ran her hands over the cartons. She frowned, for a curious prickle rippled across her palms.

“Nothing like the first one,” she said, puzzled.

Enthor raised his eyebrows, and she could only have imagined his eyes twinkling. He opened a box at random and removed, carefully, a handful of cloudy slivers, displaying them to Lanzecki and Killashandra. The other boxes held similar slivers.

“Did he cut the triad first or last?” Lanzecki spoke softly as he picked up a finger-long splinter, examining its irregularities.

“He didn't say?” Enthor ventured quietly.

Lanzecki's sigh and the brief movement of his head answered that question.

"I thought the precious symbiont healed – " Killashandra blurted out before she knew she was going to speak.

Lanzecki's eyes halted her outburst.

«The symbiont has few limitations: deliberate and constant abuse is one. The age of its host is another. Add the third factor – Keborgen stayed too long in the range, despite storm warnings.» He turned back to look at the three pieces of black crystal on the weighplate and at the credit valuation blinking on the display.

If Keborgen was dead, who inherited the credit? She jumped as Lanzecki spoke again.

“So, Killashandra Ree, you are sensitive to the blacks, and you have enjoyed a Milekey transition.”

Killashandra could not avoid the Guild Master's disconcerting appraisal. He seemed neither as remote nor detached as he had the day she had; arrived at Shankill with Carrik. His eyes, especially, were intensely alive. A nearly imperceptible upward movement of his lips brought her restless gaze to his mouth. Wide, well-shaped lips evidently reflected his thoughts more than eye, face, or body. Did she amuse him? No, probably not. The Guild Master was not known for his humor; he was held in great respect and some awe by men and women who were awed by little and respected nothing but credit. She felt her shoulders and back stiffen in automatic reaction to the flick of amusement.

“Thank you, Killashandra Ree, for your prompt discovery of that triad,” Lanzecki said with a slight inclination of his head that reinforced his gratitude. Then he turned and was gone, as quickly as he had arrived.

Exhaling, Killashandra leaned against Enthor's table.

“Always good to know black when it's near you.” Enthor paused as he gingerly unpacked shards. He blinked his eyes to focus on the weight display. “Trouble is finding it in the first place.”

“What's the second place?” she asked impudently.

Enthor blinked his lens into place and gave her a shrewd look. “Remembering where the first place was!”

She left him, walking back through Sorting to Storage and out onto the hangar deck, the shortest way back to an arc lift down to her quarters. Hangar perso

She halted at a sudden notion, wheeled and stared out at the hills in the direction of Keborgen's erratic last flight. She half ran to the Hangar Ready Room for a look at the met printout, continuously displayed and updated by the minute.

That storm to the southeast? It's dissipating?

The weather officer glanced up, a frown on his face. Forestalling rejection, Killashandra held up her wrist-band. He immediately tapped out a replay of the satellite recording, which showed the formation of the storm and its turbulent progress along the coast of the main continent and the Milekey Ranges. The gale had blown up quickly and, as unpredictably as most Ballybran storms, caressed one large sector of the range and then roiled seaward across the edge of the Long Plain where warm air had met its colder mass.

“I was on the wrecker which brought Keborgen in, but I must have dropped my wrist-unit there. Can I use a skimmer?”

The met officer shrugged. “For all of me you can have a skimmer. No weather to speak of in our zone. Check with Flight.”

Flight thought her cack-handed to have dropped equipment and assigned her a battered vehicle. She paused long enough to note that the recovery pattern of the wrecker was still displayed on the emergency screen. Once she left the office, she made notes on her wrist unit.

She unracked the skimmer and left the hangar at a sedate pace entirely consistent with a routine errand, then flew to the crash site. She was increasingly possessed by the thought that Keborgen, trying to out run the storm, surely must have come back to the complex by the most direct route. Though Concera had maundered on and on about how careful Singers were to protect their claims by using devious routes to and from, Keborgen might just as easily have flown straight in the hope of reaching safety. His sled had come in well behind the others from the same area.

Given that possibility, she could establish from data retrieval the exact second when the storm warning had been broadcast, compute the maximum speed of his sled, the direction of flight at the time of his crash, and deduce in what general area he had cut black crystal. She might even do a probability computation on the length of time Keborgen had delayed at his claim by the span of time it had taken the other thirty-nine Singers to return.

She hovered the skimmer over the crash site. The sharp mounds were begi

Shadows and sunset made it inadvisable for her to continue her search. Killashandra checked her bearings and then returned to the complex.