Crystal Singer

The continual awareness of something out of kilter made cutting easier. She completed a cut of four large five-sided blacks, had stored all the debris, when the pressure of her subjective anxiety became too intense to continue. Operating on an intuition too powerful to be refused, she slung the cutter over her shoulder, grabbed a carton in each hand, and started back to the sled. Halfway there she heard the hooter and nearly tripped for looking up at the still cloudless sky above her.

She tapped out an update for the weather. The hooter was only the first warner: a watch-the-weather-picture caution. Everything inside her head was far more alarmed than the Guild's signal. The met displayed a brewing turbulence that could bow either north or south, depending on the low pressure ridge.

She stared at the display, not at all reassured. She did her own calculations. If the very worst occurred, the storm could boil across the tip of the main continent and run across her position in four or live hours, building speed at a tremendous rate once it acquired the impetus of the advancing ridge.

“I thought you were supposed to warn us?” she shouted at the other silent storm-alerts. The hooter had automatically ceased blaring when she had programmed the weather picture. “Four, Five hours. That doesn't give me time to cut anything more. Just sit here and stew until you lot wake up to the danger. Isn't anyone analyzing the met patterns? Why all this rigmarole about distant early warnings and weather sensors if they don't bloody work?”

As she vented her tension in a one-sided tirade, she was also rigging her ship for storm-ru

“About bloody time! I came to that conclusion an hour ago.”

Airborne, she skimmed ridge and hollow, heading north at 11 for half an hour. She turned on a western leg for twenty minutes and was starting a southern track when she flipped over a gorge that looked familiar. A blur of orange in the shadows brought to mind Moksoon and his wretched pink crystals. The storm readings were insistent now. She made another pass up the gorge and saw Moksoon bent over his outcrop, two cartons beside him. He ought to have been heading out, not calmly cutting as if he had all day and a mach storm wasn't bowling down.

She came in as quietly as she could, but the grating of her sled ru

The wind however had picked up and made it difficult for him to swing and keep his balance, though Killashandra doubted that the infrasonic blade would do her sled much harm. Break his cutter.

“Storm, you addled pink tenor!” She roared out the open window.

Despite the wind scream, she could hear the hooter buzzer-bell systems of his sled.

“Mach storm on the way. You've got to leave!”

"Leave?" Panic replaced wrath on Moksoon's face. He now heard her ship's klaxons as well as his own. "I can't leave!" The wind was tearing the sound from his mouth, but Killashandra could read his lips. "I've struck a pure vein. I've – " He clamped his mouth shut with caution and had to lean into a particularly strong gust to keep from being knocked over. "I've got to cut just one more. Just one more." He raced up the slope to his site.

Unbelievingly, Killashandra watched him raise his cutter, to tune it in the teeth of a gale. Cursing, Killashandra grabbed up her hand light. Not as sturdy a weapon as she'd've liked, considering the probable denseness of Moksoon's skull, but used with the necessary force in the right spot, it ought to suffice.

As she left her sled, she experienced a taste of what it would be like to be caught in a mach storm in the crystal ranges. Sound, waves of dissonance and harmony, streamed through her head. She covered her ears, but the sound maintained contact through the rock under her feet. The keening wails masked her slithering approach, and Moksoon was too preoccupied with cutting to see anything but the octagon he was excising. Just as she had braced herself to slug him, he laid the cutter down but caught a glimpse of her descending hand and flung himself to the side. She grabbed up his cutter and pelted for his sled, nearer than hers. He'd follow her for that cutter, she was positive. She bounced into his sled, plastered herself against the wall, the brackets digging into her shoulders, wincing against the shrill obligato of Moksoon's unheeded warning devices.

He was wilier than she'd credited him. Suddenly, a strong hand grabbed her left ankle and hauled her leg sideways, a rock coming down to crush her kneecap. But for the fact she still held his cutter, she would have been crippled. She brought the cutter handle up, deflecting the rock, bruising Moksoon's fingers. She pivoted on her captured foot and delivered a second blow to the old man's jaw. He hovered a moment until she thought she'd have to club him again, but it was the wind that supported him, then let him crumple.

Automatically, Killashandra bracketed his cutter. She tapped for a weather printout, which silenced three of the mind-boggling alarms. Glancing to the rear of the sled, she saw that Moksoon had not bothered to web his packed cartons. She did so, ignoring the filth and discarded food that littered the living section. Then she remembered that there were several cartons by his claim.

Luckily, she hadn't any rocky height to negotiate from Moksoon's sled to his claim or she wouldn't have made it back with the heavy cartons. Moksoon showed no signs of reviving. She lugged him into the sled, then deposited him on the couch. He didn't so much as groan. He was alive, though she was revolted by the grease on his neck as she felt for a pulse.

It was then she realized her dilemma. Two ships and one conscious pilot. She tried to rouse Moksoon, but he was completely oblivious, and she couldn't find the med-aid kit that contained stimulant sprays.

The alarms attained a new height of distress, and she recognized that time was ru

She staggered back to her sled, which was bouncing now from the gusting wind. She wondered if she could secure her craft, somehow keep it from being flung about the gorge, and decided against wasting the time.

She grabbed her remaining cartons and was glad of the weight to anchor her feet to the ground. She was gasping for breath as she finally closed the door of Moksoon's sled. He still lolled on the couch. She webbed her four cartons and secured her cutter among his empties. She strapped Moksoon tightly to the couch and then took her place at the console.

All sleds had similar control panels, though Moksoon's was much the worse for wear.