Crystal Singer

“Yes . . .” Rimbol said.

“But we're not allowed to use them,” Jezerey finished, glaring at Killashandra.

“Which might be just as well, considering your performance on the simulator,” Borton said.

“So crystal singing is really addictive? How fast is the habit formed?” Rimbol was off in a seriocomic vein to lighten the tension that was developing. “Can it be broken? Is it profitable?”

“Yes, fast, no, and yes,” Killashandra responded. “Don't let me inhibit your enjoyment of your meal.” She rose quickly, keeping Rimbol from rising by a restraining hand on his shoulder. “See you tonight here?”

She hardly waited for his answer, for she had seen a figure entering the Commons at the far end, moving with Lanzecki's unmistakable stride. She walked to intercept him.

He was Guild Master, she realized, as he sca

“I'd like that assignment.”

“I thought you would.”

No more than that and they had passed each other, he for the catering area and she for the lifts.

CHAPTER 11

It was a relief to be back in her quarters. Somehow the absurdity of the bizarre, tri-atmospheric wall-screen restored to her a sense of the absurd. Her attempt to verbalize her experience of crystal cutting to her friends and its aftermath disturbed her. How could memory, even of such an ecstatic moment, dominate mind and body so? She had broken that first communion with the crystal block by packing it. Or had she? And whom could she ask? Was addiction why it was so easy for a Singer to lose the data retrieval function of the mind?

Had she hesitated over Lanzecki's offer because she actually didn't want to be far from the ranges? She remembered then the longing in Borella's voice to return to the ranges when her wound had healed. On the other hand, Borella could now not wait to get off the planet.

The ambivalence, Killashandra decided, could be explained. Oddly enough, it was analogous to having the starring role in a large company. The applause could be the crystal singing in your hand, fresh from the vein, stimulating, ecstatic. The same emotional high every time you cut, until body and mind were exhausted by the clamor, the concentration. The thrall of crystal confounded by the urgent need of rest and relief.

She had seated herself by the computer keyboard, motivated to record some of her reflections. The automatic time display winked the change of hour. Even thinking about crystal took enormous hunks of time. She'd been back in her room more than two hours.

Briskly sitting upright, she keyed for the original entry she had made and listened dispassionately to her voice rehearsing the few facts she had entered. Then she tapped the record tab.

“I found an abandoned black crystal vein and cut with success. The trick with crystal is to pack it away before the song gets to you in the sun. I lost my sled trying to save old Moksoon. A waste of a good sled. Lanzecki is generous, and I shall be installing the five interlocking segments I cut in the Trundimoux System. That way I avoid Passover storms which are expected to be unusually violent.”

She played back the terse synopsis of her last two weeks. Would the bones of experience remind her of the degree and emotional heights at some later time? She sniggered at her own pretentiousness. Well, she never had considered herself any sort of a playwright.

As she leaned back in the console chair, she became aware of rumbling in her belly.

“Not again!”

To deny the stimulus of hunger, she determinedly dialed a furniture catalog though she had nothing to put on tables or shelves since she had hung her lute on the wall. She thought of playing the instrument which she hadn't done in a long time, but the E string broke the moment she turned the pin. Very carefully, she replaced the lute. Then, clenching her teeth, she made for the caterer in angry strides to assuage her unacceptable appetite.

She was dialing vigorously when the communit buzzed.

“Lanzecki here.”

“Are you linked to my catering dial?”

“It is not coincidence. Guild Masters are allowed to eat when their daily duties permit. May I join you?”

“Yes, of course.” She sounded as genuinely welcoming as she could after her facetious greeting.

Lanzecki was, she supposed, as much a victim to pre-Passover appetite as anyone else. Nor did she suppose him to be exploiting her by conveniently dispatching her off world. Or . . . taking the cup of protein broth she had dialed as Lanzecki's call came through, she went to the console and checked with Marketing. The display confirmed that the Trundimoux order for a five-place communications system utilizing black-crystal components had been received five days before. The order was priority rated by the FSP sector chief. She returned to the caterer and dialed enticing food for a tired, hungry man.

And it was Lanzecki the man who entered her apartments as she was vainly trying to squeeze plates, platters and pitchers onto the limited surface of her table. She really ought to have got in more furniture.

“I started,” she said, waving her soup. “I didn't think you'd mind.” She handed him a steaming cup.

“Nor do I.” As he smiled, the tension lines around his eyes and mouth eased.

“I had a morning snack with Antona after hunger over came me during the storm scan,” she said as he seated himself, stretching out his legs.

“She undoubtedly reassured you that we're all eating heartily at this moment.”

“She ate a lot, too.”

Lanzecki laughed. “Don't worry. You'll have no appetite during Passover.”

“But I won't be here.”

“The instinct operates independently of your physical where abouts. Especially, I regret to inform you, when your transition was so recent.”

“So long as I'm not gorging like this while I'm installing the crystals.” Some planets, particularly new ones like the Trundimoux system with limited food supplies, might consider a hearty appetite unbecoming.

“No, more likely you'll be sleeping it all off.” He finished his soup and seemed more interested in picking out his next item. “Tomorrow, Trag will instruct you in installation procedures. We had a secondary communication from the Trundimoux giving us the disposition of the five units. I understand that the kindly call them Trundies; the informed style them the Moux.”

“The what?” Killashandra demanded on a laugh, for she couldn't see herself using either nickname.

«Two crystals will be installed on mobile mining stations. Trundimoux has three asteroid belts. That's how they can afford black crystal.» Lanzecki snorted. «They've fortunes in ore whirling about, waiting to be grappled. The third unit is to be on the one habitable planet and one each on the large satellites of the gas and the ice planets. Trundimoux mining operations have been seriously hampered by lack of real-time communications, so they mortgaged half a belt and, I expect, will discharge that indebtedness in short order. Originally, the system was exploited merely for the asteroid ores, with several multihulks hauling the metal to the nearest manufacturing system – Balisdel, I think it is. The Balisdelians got greedy, Trundimoux miners rebelled, settled the better planet and one of the outer moons. In less than seventy-five years, they're a going concern.»

“With money enough for black-crystal communications.”

“They'd already a linkage with Balisdel and two other systems, but this will be their own internal link. Yarran beer?” Lanzecki rose to dial the order.

Killashandra laughed. “Who drank Yarran beer before Rimbol got here? Besides you.”

“The discovery was by no means original with me, either. Yarran beer is as close to addictive as anything can be for us.”