Killashandra

“Not quite.” Trag amended in his deliberate fashion as he held the crystal up for inspection in the ceiling light. Satisfied he lowered it, his gaze traveling beyond to the fascinated observers. “If you please?” And he extended his hand toward the door.

Killashandra, her eyes on Lars’s blank face, had to fight not to chortle at the aura of dismay, fury, and shock emanating from the four high ranking Optherians. But her hands were free of both sweat and tremble and, with Lars carefully tightening the matching bracket, they were ready to fasten it the moment Trag inserted the crystal in place. The door panel whooshed over the rectangle of sunlight. Killashandra tightened her bracket just as Lars finished his. Trag took up his hammer for the ceremonial tap and the D, mellow and clear, broke the silence of the room.

“Just two more, Trag and I believe we’ll have something to show you,” Killashandra said, reaching for more brackets. “This is Lars Dahl.”

“A lover posing as a bodyguard! A young man with highly suspicious credentials,” Trag said bluntly, his hooded stare fixed on Lars.

Killashandra held up a hand to restrain any understandable outburst from Lars but he only smiled, inclining his head in brief acknowledgment of the description.

“According to Elder Ampris or Torkes?” Killashandra asked, gri

Trag focused his attention on her. Had she not been so positive of her own righteousness, she would have been hard pressed to maintain her composure beneath that basilisk stare.

“I will hear your explanation, then, for I warn you, Killashandra Ree, the Guild looks with disfavor on a member who abrogates her contractual obligations for whatever personal reasons obtain . . .”

Killashandra stared at Trag incredulously.

“I was given two assignments here, Trag, by you – ”

“The secondary assignment was considerably less important than the primary – ” Trag’s big hand indicated the unfinished installation.

“The two are more closely linked than you or Lanzecki imagined when the Guild accepted that contract. But then abduction ought not to be a high-risk-factor on well-ordered, conservative secure Optheria. Right? Ever aware of my primary obligation,” Killashandra allowed some of her outrage to color her voice, “I swam dangerous cha

Trag merely raised his eyebrows.

“Tell me, Trag, what is your opinion of subliminal conditioning?”

Trag’s bleak eyes widened fractionally. “The Council of the Federated Sentient Planets has declared any form of subliminal projection morally criminal and punishable by expulsion from the Federation.”

“Then if I were an Elder,” Lars said in a quiet, faintly amused tone, “I wouldn’t be so quick to accuse anyone else of having highly suspicious credentials.”

“If you will assist us to install the next two crystals, Trag, I believe we may be able to prove our allegation,” Killashandra said.

“If you ca

“Then isn’t it convenient that I’m right?”

“Guildmember, I have been subjected to subliminal conditioning,” Lars said, as if he sensed her minute uncertainty. Trag turned his penetrating stare on the islander.

“The insidiousness of subliminal conditioning, Lars Dahl, is that the victim is totally unaware of the bombardment.”

“Only if he is unprepared, Guildmember. My father, late an agent of the Federated Council, was able to safeguard me, and other friends, against electronically induced subliminals. Which, I might add, are particularly adaptable to the heavy emotional experience of the sensory organ.”

“Late an agent?” Killashandra fancied she saw some diminution of Trag’s intractability.

“Trapped here by the same restraint which keeps Optherians from competing in galactic enterprise,” Lars replied. “Contact with the Federated Council has only just been reestablished after nearly thirty years – ”

She and Trag heard the minute sound at the same instant and assumed suitable poses of interrupted labor when the door panel slid open. Mirbethan escorted the lunch table which the security guard wheeled in.

“If you’ll just leave it there, Mirbethan,” Killashandra gestured with a hand full of brackets while Trag and Lars bent over an already sited crystal, “we’ll take a break shortly.”

“Not the one they expect, either,” Lars murmured when the door panel had closed. Trag favored him with another u

“Why three more crystals?” Trag asked.

“This loft is half the size of the available space behind the organ console on stage,” Lars said. “We think the subliminal programming equipment is hidden behind that wall, and accessed by a musical key activated from this manual. We have reason to believe that Comgail, who is alleged to have smashed the crystal,” Trag’s eyebrows raised, “was killed because he had discovered that musical key, not because he was injured by the shards or because he had destroyed the manual. That would have only got him sent to rehab.”

“Who is responsible for the subliminal programming?”

Lars gri

“It wouldn’t take musicality to strike notes in the right sequence,” Trag said.

“True, but he knows as much about the organ as every performer must and he became head of the Conservatory about the time the subliminal conditioning started. It began shortly after my father arrived, and he was here to investigate thc first request for the revocation of the planet-bound restriction. Then, too, Torkes has always favored the propaganda control of population. But what one Elder does, the others invariably condone. And subliminal conditioning sustains them in their power.”

“Arrange for me to meet your father, Lars Dahl.”

Lars gri

“Bird?” The word exploded from Killashandra, a result of the tension she felt and a combination of surprise and respect for Lars’s sterling performance under Trag’s u

“Perhaps the analogy is wrong,” and Lars shrugged diffidently. “Well, Guildmember? Have I my day in court, too?”

“Three more crystals?” Trag’s ma

“Two more,” Killashandra said, “if we are using the original key.”

Trag made a barely audible grunt at that comment before he reached for the next crystal and motioned Lars to place his bracket.

Killashandra could not keep her mind entirely on the task at hand for she suddenly realized just how much rested on the truth of the dissidents’ contentions. Had she indeed allowed a sexual relationship to cloud her judgment? Or favorable first impressions from Nahia, Hauness, and the others to color her thinking? And yet, there was Corish von Mittelstern, and Olav Dahl. Or was that convoluted situation carefully contrived? She might be out on a limb, the saw in her own hand, she thought as she delicately tightened the bracket on the second crystal. She didn’t dare look at Lars across the open case as they straightened up.

Expressionless as ever, Trag handed Lars the tuning hammer. Lars gave Killashandra a rakish and reassuring grin and then tapped out the sequence: da da da-dum, da da da-dum. For one hideous moment nothing happened and Killashandra felt the last vestige of energy drain from her body with the groan she could not stifle. A groan that was echoed by a muted noise and a slight vibration in the floor. Startled, she and Lars looked down but Trag remained with his eyes fixed on the ceiling.