Killashandra

“How very tactful of you.” Belatedly remembering caution, Killashandra looked up at the nearest monitor, relieved to find it was a black hole. “Did the jammer survive?”

“No,” Trag said, “but white crystal, in dissonance, distorts sufficiently. They’ve stopped wasting expensive units.”

“And . . .” Killashandra prompted, encouraging Trag since he was being uncharacteristically informative.

He nodded, Olav’s grin broadened, and even Hauness looked pleased. “Those shards provide enough white crystal to get the most vulnerable people past the security curtain. Nahia and Hauness will organize a controlled exodus until the Federated Council can move. Lars and Olav come with us on the scout ship. Brassner, Theach, and Erutown are to be picked up by Ta

“Corish?” Killashandra looked about expectantly.

“He’s searching most thoroughly for his uncle,” Hauness said, “and attending the public concerts which have been hastily inaugurated, to soothe a disturbed public.”

“What’s the diet?”

“Security, pride, reassurance, no sex,” Hauness replied.

“Then you didn’t get to the other organs, Trag?”

“Corish suggested that some should be left in, shall we say, normal operating condition as evidence, to be seen by the Federal Investigators.”

“What Trag doesn’t say, Killashandra,” replied Nahia, a luminous smile gently rebuking the other crystal singer, “is that he refused to leave you.”

“As the only way to prevent the Infirmary from interfering with the symbiont,” Trag said, bluntly, disclaiming any hint of sentiment. “Lars thought to send for Nahia to relieve pain.”

“For which I am truly grateful. I’ve only a tolerable ache left. How long have I been out?”

“Five days,” Hauness replied, scrutinizing her professionally. He placed the end of a hand-diagnostic unit lightly against her neck, nodding in a brief approval of its readings. “Much better. Incredible in fact. Anyone else would have died of any one of several of the wounds you received. Or that cracked skull.”

“Am I dead or alive?”

“To Optheria?” Trag asked. “No official acknowledgment of the attack has been broadcast. The whole episode has been extremely embarrassing for the government.”

“I should bloody hope so! Wait till I see Ampris!”

“Not in that frame of mind, you won’t,” Trag assured her, repressively stern.

“No more of us for the time being,” Hauness said, nodding significantly to the others. “Unless Nahia . . . .”

Killashandra closed her eyes for a moment, since moving her head seemed inadvisable. But she opened them to warn Hauness from disturbing Lars, who was still kneeling by the bed. He no longer wept but pressed her hand against his cheek as if he would never release it. The door closed quietly behind the others.

“So you and Olav can just walk into the scout ship?” she asked softly, trying to lighten his penitence.

“Not quite,” he said with a weak chuckle, but, still holding her hand, he straightened up, leaning forward, toward her, on his elbows. His face looked bleached of tan, lines of anxiety and fear aging him. “Trag and my father have combined their wits – and I’m to he arrested by the warrant Trag has. Don’t worry,” and he patted her hands as she reacted apprehensively, remembering Trag’s remarks about using the warrant. “Carefully worded, the warrant will charge me with a lot of heinous crimes that weren’t actually committed by me, but which will keep Ampris and Torkes happy in anticipation of the dire punishment which the Federated Courts dispense for crimes of such magnitude.”

Killashandra grabbed tightly at his hands, ignoring the spasm of pain across her chest in her fear for him. “I don’t like the idea, Lars, not one little bit.”

“Neither my father nor Trag are likely to put me in jeopardy, Killa. We’ve managed a lot while you were sleeping it off. When we’re sure that the scout ship is about to arrive, Trag will confer with Ampris and Torkes, confronting them with his suspicions about me – in your delirium you inadvertently blew the gaff. Trag is not about to let such a desperate person as me escape unpunished. He has held his counsel to prevent my escaping justice.”

“There’s something about this plan that alarms me.”

“I’d be more alarmed if I had to stay behind,” Lars said with a droll grin. “Trag won’t give the Elders time to interfere, and they’ll be unable to protest a Federal Warrant when a Federation scout ship is collecting me and you and Trag. The beauty part is that thc scout’s the wrong shape to use the shuttle port facility. Its security arrangements require open-space landing anyhow. That way my father has a chance of boarding her.”

“I see.” The scheme did sound well-pla

“He’d been called in by the Elders on an administrative detail. Why so few islanders attend concerts” Lars had regained considerable equilibrium and he rose from his knees, still holding her hand, to sit beside her on the bed.

“Who did attack me, Lars?”

“Some desperate people whose families and friends had been scooped up by that search and seize. If only I’d been free to get into the marketplace, Olver would have warned me of the climate of the City. We’d have known not to let you walk about.”

“As Corish and I left the Facility, a woman who gave me such a look of hatred – ”

“You were spotted long before she saw you, Su

“Don’t fret about ifs, Lars Dahl! A few aches and pains achieved what the best laid plans might have failed to do.”

Lars’s face was a study in shocked indignation.

“Do you know how badly you were hurt? Hauness wasn’t kidding when he said you could have died from any one of those wounds, let alone all of them together. “He held her hand in a crushing grip. “I thought you were dead when Corish brought you back. I . . .” A sudden look of embarrassment rippled across his stern face. “The one time you really needed a bodyguard, I wasn’t there!”

As you can see, it takes a lot to kill a crystal singer.”

“I noticed, and don’t wish to ever again.”

Unwittingly he had reminded them both of the inescapable fact that their idyll was nearly over. Killashandra couldn’t bear to think of it and quickly evaded further discussion of that.

“Lars,” she said plaintively, “at the risk of appearing depressingly basic, I’m hungry!”

Lars stared at her in consternation for a moment but he accepted her evasion and his understanding smile began to replace the sadness in his eyes.

“So am I.” Lars leaned forward to kiss her, gently at first and then with an urgency that showed Killashandra the depths of his apprehension for her. Then, with a spring in his step and a jaunty set to his shoulders, he went in search of food.

Killashandra did have to endure the official apologies and insincere protestations of the Elders, all nine of them. She made the obligatory responses, consoling herself with the thought that their days were numbered, and she would shorten that number as much as possible. She pretended to be far weaker than she actually was, for once the symbiont began its work, her recovery was markedly swift. But, for official visits, she managed to assume the appearance of debility so that her convalescence had to be supervised by Nahia and Hauness, skilled medical practitioners that they were. This gave the conspirators ample time to plan an orderly and discreet exodus of people in jeopardy from Elderly tyra

Olav had smuggled his miniature detector unremarked into the Conservatory as a piece of Hauness’s diagnostic equipment. At first they had been bitterly disappointed when it responded to Lar’s proximity, despite his pockets being full of white crystal shards. If Trag approached with Lars, the device remained silent, so Killashandra’s theory that crystal resonance confused the detector was correct. But her resonance was gone and, with the imminent arrival of the scout ship, there would be no chance for Trag to usher a few refugees past the security curtain at the shuttleport arch.