Crystal Singer

“This duty will provide me with the margin of credit for my future foolishness?”

Lanzecki chuckled appreciatively.

“Think about the assignment while you eat some fried steakbean.”

“It is, then, a suggestion?” she asked around a large mouthful of tasty legume.

«It is – now – a suggestion.» His face, mouth, and tone were bland. «The storms will soon be hammering the ranges and forcing Singers in. Others would undertake the assignment happily, especially those who haven't cut enough crystal to get off-world at Passover.»

“I thought Passover was an incredible spectacle.”

“It is. Raw natural forces at their most destructive.” A lift to his shoulders suggested that it was a spectacle to which he was inured and yet . . .

“Do you leave during Passover?”

He gave her a keen glance, his dark eyes reflecting the spotlights over his work desk.

“The Guild Master is always accessible during Passover.” He offered her some lemon-yellow cubes. “A sharpish cheese, but it complements the steakbean.”

“Hmmm. Yes, it does.”

“Help yourself.” He rose and took the next dishes from the catering slot, which had been maintaining them at the appropriate heat. “Will you have something to drink?”

“Yarran beer, please.” She had a sudden craving for the taste of hops.

“Good choice. I'll join you.”

She glanced at him, arrested by some slight alteration of tone, but his back was to her.

“Rimbol's from Scartine, isn't he?” Lanzecki asked, returning with a pitcher and two beakers. He poured with a proper respect for the head of foam. “He should cut well in the darker shades. Perhaps black, if he can find a vein.”

“How could you tell?”

“A question of resonance, also of the degree of adaptation. Jezerey will do lighter blues, pinks, paler greens. Borton will also tend to cut well in the darker. I hope they team up.”

“Do you know who will cut what?”

“I am not in a position to imply anything, merely venture an informed guess. After all, the Guild has been operating for over four hundred years galactic, all that time collecting and collating information on its members. It would show a scandalous want of probity not to attempt more than merely a determination of probability of adjustment to Ballybran spore symbiosis.”

“You sound like Borella's come-all-ye pitch,” Killashandra replied.

Lanzecki's lips twitched in an amusement that was echoed by the sparkle in his brilliant eyes. «I do believe I'm quoting – but whom, I've forgotten. How about some pepper fruit? Goes with the beer. I've ordered some ices to clear the palate. A very old and civilized course but not one taken with beer.» As he passed her the plate, the tangy scent of the long, thin furry fingers did tempt her to try one. «As I was saying, by the time candidates are through the Shankill checkpoint, as many variables as can be resolved have been.» He began to pile empty plates and dishes into one untidy stack, and she realized that while he had sampled everything, she had eaten far more. Yet she didn't feel uncomfortably full. «You ought to have been shown the probability graph,» he said, frowning as he rose. He tossed the discards deftly into the waste chute before pausing yet again at the catering slot.

“We were.” She nibbled at another pepper fruit while wondering why his face showed no trace of aging. He wasn't singing crystal anymore, but that was the ostensible reason for the specious youthfulness. “We were told nothing about individual capabilities or forecasts.”

''Why should you be? That would create all sorts of u

“I couldn't eat another thing.”

“No? Try a spoonful of the green. Very settling to the stomach and clears the mouth.” He seated himself and poured the wine. “The one critical point is still adaptation. The psychological attitude, Antona feels, rather than the physical. That space worker, Carigana, should not have died.” Lanzecki's expression was one of impersonal regret. “We can generally gauge the severity of transition and are prepared for contingencies.”

Killashandra thought of the smooth disappearances of Rimbol and Mistra during the night, of meditechs collecting Jezerey before she had fallen to the plascrete. She also recalled her indignation over "condition satisfactory.

“How do you like the wine?”

“Does it have to be so mechanical?”

“The wine?”

“The whole process.”

“Every care is taken, my dear Killashandra,” and Lanzecki's tone reminded her incontrovertibly that he was Guild Master and that the procedure she wished to protest was probably of his institution.

“The wine's fine.”

“I thought you'd appreciate it.” His response was as dry as the wine. “Not much is left to chance in recruiting. Tukolom may be a prosy bore, but he has a curious sensitivity to illness which makes him especially effective in his role as tutor.”

"Then it was known that I – "

“You were not predicted.” He used the slightest pause between each word for emphasis, and raising his glass to her, took a sip.

“And . . .” It was not coquetry in Killashandra that caused her to prompt him but the strongest feeling that he had been about to add a rider to that surprise comment.

«And certainly not a Milekey, nor resonant to black crystal. Perhaps» – and his quick reply did, she was positive, mask thoughts unspoken – «we should initiate handling crystal with recruits as soon as possible. But» – and he shrugged – «we can't program convenient storms which require all-member participation.»

“Rimbol said you couldn't have pla

“Perceptive of him. How did those ices go down?”

“They went.” She was surprised to find dish, bottle, and wine glasses empty.

“Fine. Than we can start on more.”

“More?” But already a pungent spicy odor emanating from the caterer had sharpened her appetite. “I'll bloat.”

“Very unlikely. Had you gone out with your class, this is exactly what would have been served on your return from the ranges. Yarran beer, since you have cultivated a taste for it, would be appropriate to wash down the spicefish.” He dialed for more. “Beer has also, for mille

His comment, delivered in a slightly pompous tone, made her laugh. So she ate the spicefish, drank the beer, responded to certain natural effects of it, and, at one point, realized that Lanzecki had coaxed, diverted, bullied her into continuously consuming food for nearly three hours. By then, her satiation was such that when Lanzecki casually repeated his suggestion that she install the black crystal, she agreed to consider it.

“Is that why you've stuffed and drunken me?” she demanded, sitting erect to feign indignation.

«Not entirely. I have given you sufficient food to restore your symbiont and enough drink to relax you.» He smiled away her defective grammar and any accusation of coercion. «I do not wish you to endure Passover's mach storms. You might be ten levels underground, buffered by plascrete a meter thick, but the resonances ca

“Do you ever . . . escape?”

The delicate bond of perception between them lasted some time, and then, leaning across the table, he kissed her question away.

He escorted her back to her quarters, made certain she was comfortable in the bedroom, and suggested that in the morning she take her cutter down to be checked and stored, that if she was interested in weather history, she could review other phenomenal Passover storms in the met control the next day at eleven and see something of Storm Control tactics.