Crystal Singer

A sudden stab of piercing light made her clutch the yoke of the sled to steady herself. She peered down and saw an orange slice of sled top, half hidden by an overhang and deep in the ravine, only its luminescent paint and her altitude disclosing it. On the highest of the surrounding ridges was the splash of paint indicating a claim.

That crystal flash, as unlikely as everything else that had been happening to her recently, confirmed that some of the other improbables might also be true on Ballybran.

Fardles! Where had Moksoon got to? During her brief inattention, the old Singer's orange sled had slipped from view. She speeded up and caught a glimpse of the orange stern winding through a deep ravine. Without changing altitude, she matched pace with his cautious forward movement, her view screen on magnify. Since she had his sled well in view, she did not reactivate the tape. He might just as easily slam into one of the odd stone buttresses that lined the canyon if she startled him.

She checked the heading; Moksoon had gone north by 11. Suddenly, he oozed up and over a ridge, down into a deeper, shadowed valley. She dove, noting quickly that the deep went south. Unless he flipped over the intervening fold, Moksoon would have to follow the southerly course. That gorge continued in its erratic fashion stubbornly south by 4. She couldn't see Moksoon in the shadows, but there was no place else he could be.

The long winding of the gorge ended in a blockage of debris, the erosion of a higher anticline. There was no sign of Moksoon. He had to be in the gorge, hiding in shadow. Then she saw the faded claim blaze on a ridge. Even in Ballybran's climate, the stuff was supposed to take decades to deteriorate so much. A released claim always had the piss-green countermark – not that she'd seen any of those during her pursuit of Moksoon.

Cautiously, she guided her sled down the rock slide and into the gorge. In some places, the sides nearly met; in others, she had a view of ranges folding beyond. Something glinted in the little sunlight that penetrated. She increased the magnification and was surprised to see a thin stream meandering the base of the gorge. There had been no lake at the blocked point, so she assumed that the little stream went underground in its search for an outlet to the Bay.

She was begi

She keyed the replay and turned up the volume so that Lanzecki's voice was echoing off the rock walls as Moksoon slipped and slid toward her, the crystal cutter held safely above his head.

“Claim jumper! Claim jumper!” he shrieked, stumbling to the ledge on which she had rested her sled. He turned on the cutter, held it well in front of him, as he approached her sled door.

“In accordance with Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5 . . .” the replay roared.

"Lanzecki!" He's with you?" Moksoon glanced wildly around and above him, searching for another sled.

“Playback,” Killashandra yelled through Lanzecki's amplified words. “I'm not claim jumping. You're shepherding me. You get a bonus.” She used her voice training to shoot her message through the pauses in the recording.

“That's me?” Moksoon pointed accusingly at her sled from which his own hesitant voice emanated.

“Yes, you made the tape this morning. You promised to shepherd me for the bonus.”

“Bonus!” Moksoon lowered the cutter, though Killashandra adroitly maneuvered herself farther from its point.

"Yes, bonus, according to Section 53, Paragraphs 1 through 5. Remember?''

“Yes, I do.” Moksoon didn't sound all that certain. “That's you speaking now.”

“Yes, promising to abide by Section 49, Paragraphs 7, 9 and 14. I'm to stay with you two days only, to watch an expert cut crystal. Lanzecki recommended you so highly. One of the best.”

“That Lanzecki! All he wants is cut crystal.” Moksoon snorted in sulky condemnation.

“This time you'll have a bonus to get you off-world.”

The cutter pointed down now, the fingers of the tired old man so slack on the grip, Killashandra hoped he wouldn't drop it. She'd been told often enough how easily the wretchedly expensive things damaged.

“I gotta get off Ballybran. I gotta. That's why I said I'd shepherd.” Head bent, Moksoon was talking to himself now, ignoring the replayed affirmations.

Suddenly, he swung the tip of his cutter up and advanced towards her menacingly. Killashandra scooted back as far as she could on the ledge.

“How do I know you won't pop right back in here when I'm off-world and cut my claim?”

“I couldn't find the bloody place again,” she said, exploding, discretion no advantage in dealing with the fanatic. “I haven't a clue where I am. I had to keep my eyes on you, zipping here and dropping there. Have you forgotten how to pilot a sled? You sure have forgotten a perfectly valid agreement you made only five hours ago!”

Moksoon, his eyes little slits of suspicion, lowered the cutter fractionally. “You know where you are.”

“South at four is all I bloody know, and for all the twists and turns in this ruddy gorge, we could be north at ten. What in damnation does it matter? Show me how to cut crystal and I'll leave in an hour.”

“You can't cut crystal in an hour. Not properly.” Moksoon was scathingly contemptuous. “You don't know the first thing about cutting crystal.”

“You're quite right. I don't. And you'll get a huge bonus for showing me. Show me, Moksoon.”

With a combination of cajolery, outrageous flattery, constant repetition of words like “bonus,” “Lanzecki expects,” “off-world,” and “brilliant Cutter,” she pacified Moksoon. She suggested that he eat something before showing her how to cut and let him think she was fooled into offering from her own supplies. For a slight man, he had a very hearty appetite.

Well fed, rested, and having filled her with what she knew must be a lot of nonsense about angles of the sun, dawn, and sunset excursions down dark ravines to hear crystal wake or go to sleep, Moksoon showed no inclination to pick up his cutter and get on with his end of the bargain. She was trying to think of a tactful way of suggesting it when he suddenly jumped to his feet, throwing both arms up to greet a shaft of sunlight that had angled down the ravine to strike their side just beyond the bow of his sled.

A peculiar tone vibrated through the rock on which Killashandra was sitting. Moksoon grabbed up his cutter and scrambled emitting a joyous cackle that turned into a fine, clear ringing A sharp below middle C. Moksoon sang in the tenor ranges.

And part of the ravine answered!

By the time she had reached him, he was already slicing at the pink quartz face his sled had obscured. Why the old —

Then she heard crystal crying. For all his other failings, Moksoon had an astonishing lung capacity for so old a man. He held the accurate note even after his pitched cutter was excising a pentagon from the uneven extrusion of quartz, which flashed from different facets as the sunlight shifted. The dissonance that began as he got deeper into the face was an agony so basic that it shook Killashandra to her teeth. It was much worse than retuning crystal. She froze at the unexpected pain, instinctively letting loose with a cry of masking sound. The agony turned into two notes, pure and clear.

“Sing on!” Moksoon cried. “Hold that note!” He reset his infrasonic cutter and made a second slice, cropped it, sang again, tuned the cutter, and dug the blade in six neat slashes downward. His thin body shook, but his hands were amazingly steady as he cut and cut until he reached the edge. With an exultant note, he jumped to a new position and made the bottom cut for the four matched crystals. “My beauties. My beauties!” he crooned and, laying the cutter carefully down, dashed off to his sled, reemerging seconds later with a carton. He was still crooning as he packed the pieces. There was a curious ambivalence in his motions, of haste and reluctance, for his fingers caressed the sides of the octagons as he put them away.