Crystal Singer (14 page)

Giving the returned skimmer one last sweep of his hand, the hangar man began to climb to check another vehicle, unconscious of Killashandra’s presence. She stared after him. Had his job, his dedication to the preservation of his skimmers, supplanted interest in people? If she received deafness from the symbiont, would she detach herself from people so completely?

She made her way down to the hangar floor, startled each time the engine being repaired blasted out its unbaffled noise. She might have renounced music as a career, but never to hear it again? She shuddered convulsively.

She had been so positive on Fuerte that hers was to be a brilliant career as a solo performer, maybe she’d better not be so bloody certain of becoming a Crystal Singer and explore the alternatives within the Guild.

Suddenly, she didn’t want to return to the recruits’ lounge, nor did she wish to hear the accounts of the other eight who had skimmed away from the Guild Complex. She wanted to be private. Getting out by herself, to the edge of the range, had been beneficial, the encounter with the hangar man an instructive countertheme.

She walked quickly from the hangar, caught by the stiff breeze and bending into it. The eastern sky was darkening; glancing over her shoulder, she saw banks of western clouds tinged purple by the setting sun. She paused, savoring the display, and then hurried on. She didn’t wish to be sighted by the returning skimmers. Finally past the long side of the Complex, she struck out up a low hill, her boots scuffling in the dirt. A warm spicy smell rose when she trod on the low ground cover. She listened to the rising wind, not merely with her ears but with her entire body, planting her boot heels firmly in the soil, hoping to experience again that coil of body-felt sound. The wind bore the taint of brine and chill but no sound as it eddied past her and away east.

There the sky was dark now, and the first faint stars were appearing. She must study the astronomy of Ballybran. Strange that this had not been mentioned in the lectures on meteorology; or was it a deliberate exclusion since the knowledge would have no immediate bearing on the recruits training?

Shanganagh, the middle moon, rose, honey-colored, in the northeast. She seemed almost to creep out, much as Killashandra was doing, to be away from the more powerful personality of Shankill and the erratic infringements of Shilmore. Killashandra grinned—if Rimbol were symbolized by Shankill, that would make Shillawn, Shilmore. Shanganagh was the odd one out, avoiding the other two until inexorable forces pulled her between their paths at passover.

Shanganagh paled to silver, rising higher and lighting Killashandra’s way until she reached the crest of a rolling hill and realized that she could walk all night, possibly getting lost, to no purpose. Student pranks had been tolerated, in their place, on Fuerte in the Music Center, but it would be quite another matter here where an old deaf hangar man cared more for his vehicles than the people who used them.

She turned and surveyed the crouching hulk of the Guild, its upper stories lit by the rising moon, the remainder sharp black thrusts of shadow. She sat down on the hillside, twisting her buttocks to find some comfort. She hadn’t realized how huge the Complex was and what a small portion of it was above the surface. She had been told that the best quarters were deep underground. Killashandra picked up a handful of gravel and cast the bits in a thin arc, listening to the rattle as bush and leaf were struck.

The sense of isolation, of total solitude and utter privacy, pleased her as much as the odors on the wind and the roughness of the dirt in her hand. Always on Fuerte, there had been the knowledge that people were close by, people were seeing, if not intently observing her, impinging on her consciousness, infringing on her desire to be alone and private.

Suddenly, Killashandra could appreciate Carigana’s fury. If the woman had been a space worker, she had enjoyed the same sense of privacy. She’d never needed to learn the subtle techniques of cutting oneself from contact. Well, if Killashandra understood something of Carigana’s antisocial manner, she still had no wish to make friends with her. She spun off another handful of dirt.

It was comforting, too, to know that on Ballybran, at least, one could take a nighttime stroll in perfect safety—one of the few worlds in the Federated Sentient Planets where that was possible. She rose, dusted off her pants, and continued her walk around the great Guild installation.

She almost stumbled as she reached the front of the building, for a turf so dense that it felt like a woven fabric had been encouraged to grow there. The imposing entrance hall bore the shield of the Heptite Guild in a luminous crystal. The tall, narrow windows facing south gave off no light on the first level, and most were dark on the upper stories. She wondered which ratings were so low as to live above ground. Caterers’ assistants?

Killashandra was beginning to regret her whimsical night tour as she passed the long side of the building, the very long side. Ramps, up and down, pierced the flat wall at intervals, but she knew from Tukolom’s lecture that these led into storage areas without access to the living quarters, so she trudged onward until she was back at the vast hangar maw.

She was very weary when she finally reached the ramp to the class’s quarters. All else was quiet, the lounge empty and dark. Though Rimbol’s door light was green, she hurried past to her own. Tomorrow would be soon enough for companionship. She went to sleep, comforted by the irrevocable advantage of privacy available to a member of the Heptite Guild.

Killashandra wasn’t as positive of that the next afternoon as she struggled to retain her balance in the gusts of wind and, more importantly, tried not to drop the precious crate of crystal. The recruits had been aroused by the computer at a false dawn they had to take on faith. The sky was a deep, sullen gray, with storm clouds that were sucked across the Complex so low they threatened to envelop the upper level. The recruits had been told to eat quickly but heartily and to report to the cargo officer on the hangar floor. They were to be under her supervision until she released them. Wind precautions were already evident; the 12-meter-high screen across the hangar maw was lowered only to admit approaching airsleds; evidently the device was to prevent workers’ being sucked from the hangar by fierce counterdraughts.

Cargo Officer Malaine took no chances that instructions would be misunderstood or unheard. She carried a bullhorn, but her orders were also displayed on screens positioned around the hangar. If they had any doubts as they assisted the regular personnel in unloading, the recruits were to touch and/or otherwise get the attention of anyone in a green-checked uniform. Basic instructions remained on the screen; updates blinked orange on the green displays.

“Your main assignments will be to unload, very, very carefully, the cartons of cut crystals. One at a time. Don’t be misled by the fact that the cartons have strong hand grips. The wind out there will shortly make you wish you had prehensile tails.” Cargo Officer Malaine gave the recruits a smile. “You’ll know when to put on your head gear,” and she tapped a closefitting skull cap with its padded ears and eyescreen. “Now”—and she gestured to the plasglass wall of the ready-room facing the hangar—“the sleds are coming in. Watch the procedure of the hangar personnel. First, the Crystal Singer is checked, then the cargo is off-loaded. You will concentrate on off-loading. Your responsibility is to transfer the crystal cartons safely inside. Any carton that comes in is worth more than you are! No offense, recruits, just basic Guild economics. I also caution you that Crystal Singers just in off the ranges are highly unpredictable. You’re lucky. All in this group have been out a good while, so they’ll probably have good cuttings. Don’t drop a carton! You’ll have the Singer, me, and Guild Master Lanzecki on your neck—the Singer being first and worst.

“Fair does not apply,” Malaine said in a hard voice. “Those plasfoam boxes”—and she pointed at the line of hangar personnel hurrying to the cargo bay, white cartons clutched firmly to their chests—“are what pay for this planet, its satellites, and everything on them. No one gets a credit till that cargo is safely in this building, weighed in, and graded—Okay, here’s a new flight coming in. I’ll count you off in three. Line up and be ready to go when called. Just remember: the crystal is important! When the klaxon sounds—that means a sled is out of control! Duck but don’t drop!”

She counted the recruits off, and Killashandra was teamed with Borton and a man she didn’t know by name. The recruits formed loose trios in front of the window, watching the routine.

“Doesn’t seem hard,” the man commented to Borton. “Those cartons can’t be heavy,” and he gestured at a slim person walking rapidly carrying his burden.

“Maybe not now, Celee,” Borton replied, “but when the wind picks up—”

“Well, we’re both sturdy enough to give our teammate a hand if she needs one,” Celee said, grinning with some condescension at Killashandra.

“I’m closer to the ground,” she said, looking up at him with a warning glint in her eyes. “Center of gravity is lower and not so far to fall.”

“You tell him Killa.” Borton nudged Celee and winked at her.

Suddenly Celee pointed urgently to the hangar. The recruits saw a sled careen in, barely missing the vaulted roof, then plunge toward the ground, only to be pulled up at the last second, skid sideways, and barely miss a broadside against the interior wall. A klaxon had sounded, its clamor causing everyone to clap hands over his ears at the piercing noise. When the trio looked again, the airsled had slid to a stop, nose against the wall. To their surprise, the Singer, orange overalls streaked with black, emerged unscathed from the front hatch, gave the sled an admonitory kick, gestured obscenely at the wind, and then stalked into the shelter of the cargo bay. Then she, Borton, and Celee were being beckoned out to the hangar floor.

As Killashandra grabbed her first carton from a Singer’s ship, she clutched it firmly to her chest because it was light and could easily have been flipped from a casual grip by the strong wind gusting about the hangar. She got to the cargo bay with a sigh of relief, only to be stunned by the sight of the Crystal Singer, who was slumped against a wall while snarling at the medic who was daubing at the blood running down the Singer’s left cheek. Until the last carton from his sled was unloaded, the Crystal Singer remained at his observation point.

“By the horny toes of a swamp bear,” Celee remarked to Killashandra as they hurried back for more cartons, “that man knows every nardling
one
of his cargo, and he sure to bones knows we’re doing the unloading. And the bloody wind’s rising. Watch it, Killashandra.”

“Only two more in that ship,” Borton yelled as he passed them on his way in. “They want to hoist it out of the way!”

Celee and Killashandra trotted faster, wary of the hoist now descending over the disabled ship. No sooner had they lifted the last two cartons from the sled than the hoist clanked tight on its top. At that instant, Killashandra glanced around her and counted five more sleds wheeling in, fortunately in more control. Seven unloaded vehicles were heading to the top of the sled storage racks.

As the hangar became crowded, unloading took longer, and keeping upright during the passage between sled and cargo bay became increasingly more difficult. Killashandra saw three people flung against sleds, and one skidded against the outer wind baffle. An incoming sled was caught in a side gust and flipped onto its back. Killashandra shook her head against the loud keening that followed, unsure whether it was the sound of the gale or the injured Singer’s screaming. She forced her mind to the business of unloading and maintaining her balance.

She was wheeling back from the bay for yet another load when someone caught her by the hair. Startled, she looked up to see Cargo Officer Malaine, who jerked the helmet from Killashandra’s belt and jammed it atop her head. Abashed at her lapse of memory, Killashandra hastily straightened the protective gear; Malaine gave her a grin and an encouraging thumbs up.

The relief from the wind’s noise and the subsidence of air pressure in her ears was enormous. Killashandra, accustomed to full chorus and electronically augmented orchestral instruments, had not previously thought of “noise” as a hazard. But to be deaf on Ballybran might not be an intolerable prospect. She could still hear the gale’s shrieks, but the cacophony was blessedly muffled, and the relief from the sound pressure gave her fresh energy. She needed it, for the physical strength of the gale hadn’t abated at all.

In the course of her next wind-battered trip, a wholesale clearance of sleds took place behind her back. The emptied sleds were cleared, and the newer arrivals slipped into the vacant positions. Some relief from the wind could be had by darting from the wind shadow of one sled to that of the next. The danger lay in the gap, for there the gale would whip around to catch the unwary.

Why no one was killed, why so few ships were damaged inside the hangar, and why not a single plasfoam container was dropped, Killashandra would never know. She was at one point certain, however, that she had probably bumped into most of the nine thousand Guild members stationed in the Joslin Plateau Headquarters. She later learned her assumption was faulty: anyone who could have, had carefully contrived to remain inside.

The cartons were not always heavy, though the weight was unevenly distributed, and the heavy end always ended up dragging at Killashandra’s left arm. That side was certainly the sorest the next day. Only once did she come close to losing a container: she hefted it from the ship and nearly lost the whole to a gust of wind. After that, she learned to protect her burden with her body to the wind.

Aside from the intense struggle with the gale-force winds, two other observations were indelibly marked in her mind that day. A different side of Crystal Singers, their least glamorous, as they jumped from their sleds. Few looked as if they had washed in days: some had fresh wounds, and others showed evidence of old ones. When she had to enter a sled’s cargo hold to get the last few cartons, she was aware of an overripe aroma exuding from the main compartment of the sled and was just as glad that there was a fierce supply of fresh air at her back.