Crystal Singer (20 page)

Borton demonstrated his anxieties by being loud in complaint on the return journey, nagging at Tukolom for more details than the “satisfactory” prognosis. Although Killashandra sympathized with the former shuttle pilot’s concern for his friend, his harangues began to irritate. She was sorely tempted to tell him to turn it off, but the scraping and painting had tired her, and she couldn’t summon the energy to speak.

When the transport settled back at the hangar, she made sure she was the last to descend. She wanted nothing more than a hot bath and quiet.

Nor was she refreshed at all by the bathing. She dialed for a Yarran beer and for information on Rimbol. He was continuing “satisfactory,” and the beer tasted off. A different batch, she thought, not up to the standard of the Guild at all. But she sipped it, watching the dying day color her hillside with rapid shifts into the deepest purples and browns of shadow. She left the half-finished beer and stretched out on her bed, wondering if the fatigue she felt was cumulative or the onset of the symbiotic fever. Her pulse was normal, and she was not flushed. She pulled the thermal cover over her, turned on her side, and fell asleep wondering what would be found for the remainder of the recruits to do on the morrow.

The waking buzz brought her bolt upright in the bed.

“Lower that narding noise!” she cried, hands to her ears to muffle the incredible din.

Then she stared about her in surprise. The walls of her quarters were no longer a neutral shade but sparkled with many in the all-too-brilliant morning sun. She turned up the window opacity to cut the blinding glare. She felt extraordinarily rested, clearer of mind than she had since the morning she realized she didn’t owe Fuerte or the Music Center any further allegiance. As she made for the toilet, the carpeting under her bare feet felt strangely harsh. She was aware of subtle odors in the facility, acrid, pungent, overlaid by the scent she used. She couldn’t remember spilling the container last night. The water as she washed her face and hands had a softness to it she had not previously noticed.

When she shrugged into her coverall, its texture was oddly coarse on her hands. She scrubbed them together and then decided that perhaps there’d been something abrasive in the paint she had used the day before. But her feet hadn’t painted anything!

Noise struck her the moment the door panel opened. She flinched, reluctant to enter the corridor, which she was startled to find empty. The commotion was coming from the lounge. She could identify every voice, separating one conversation from another by turning her head. Then she noticed the guide stripe at the far end of the corridor, a stripe that was no longer dull gray but a vivid bluish purple.

She stepped back into her room and closed the panel, unable to comprehend the immense personal alteration that had apparently transformed her overnight.

“Am I satisfactory?” she cried out, a wild exultation seizing her. She threw her arms about her shoulders. “Is MY condition satisfactory?”

A tap on her door panel answered her.

“Come in.”

Tukolom stood there with two Guild medics. That did not surprise her. The expression on Tukolom’s face did. The mentor drew back in astonishment, expressions of incredulity, dismay, and indignation replacing his customary diffidence. It struck Killashandra a peculiar that this man, who had undoubtedly witnessed the transformation of thousands of recruits, should appear displeased at hers.

“You will be conducted to the infirmary to complete the symbiosis.” Tukolom took refuge in a rote formula. His hand left his side just enough to indicate that she should leave with the medics.

Thoroughly amused at his reaction and quite delighted with herself, Killashandra stepped forward eagerly, then turned with the intention of picking up the lute. Now that she knew she’d have her hearing the rest of her life, she wanted the instrument.

“Your possessions to you will be later brought. Go!” Tukolom’s anger and frustration were not overt. His face was suffused with red.

There was not the least physical or philosophical resemblance between Tukolom and Maestro Valdi, yet at the moment Killashandra was reminded of her former teacher. She turned her back on Tukolom and followed her guides to the ramp. Just as she emerged from the corridor, she heard Tukolom peremptorily calling for attention. Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that every head was turned in his direction. Once again, she had made a major exit without an audience.

CHAPTER 6

I
t was bad enough to be whisked away as if she’d committed a crime, but the meditechs kept asking if she felt faint or hot or cold, as if she was negligent when she denied any physical discomfort. Therefore, she could scarcely admit to a sense of vitality she had never previously experienced, to the fact that everything about her, even their plain green tunics, had taken on a new luster, that her fingers twitched to touch, her ears vibrated to minute sounds. Most of all, she wanted to shout her exultation in octaves previously impossible for the human voice.

The extreme anticlimax came when the chief meditech, a graceful woman with dark hair braided into an elaborate crown, wanted Killashandra to submit to the physical scanner.

“I don’t need a scanner. I have never felt so well!”

“The symbiont can be devious, my dear Killashandra, and only the scanner can tell us that. Do please lie down. You know it doesn’t take long, and we really need an accurate picture of your present physical well-being.”

Killashandra stifled her sudden wish to scream and submitted. She was in such euphoria that the claustrophobic feel of the helmet didn’t bother her, nor did the pain-threshold nerve jab do more than make her giggle.

“Well, Killashandra Ree,” Antona said, absently smoothing a strand into her coronet, “you are the lucky one.” Her smile as she assisted Killashandra to her feet was the warmest the young woman had seen from a full Guild member. “We’ll just make certain this progress has no setbacks. Come with me and I’ll show you your room.”

“I’m all right? I thought there’d be some fever.”

“There may be fever in your future,” Antona said, smiling encouragingly as she guided Killashandra down a wide hall.

Killashandra hesitated, wrinkling her nose against the odors that assailed her now: dank sweat, urine, feces, vomit, and as palpable as the other stenches, fear.

“Yes,” Antona said, observing her pause, “I expect it’ll take time for you to become accustomed to augmented olfactory senses. Fortunately, that’s not been one of my adaptations. I can still smell, would have to in my profession, but odors don’t overwhelm me. I’ve put you at the back, away from the others, Killashandra. You can program the air conditioner to mask all this.”

Noises, too, assaulted Killashandra. Despite thick sound-deadening walls, she recognized one voice.

“Rimbol!” She twisted to the right and was opening the door before Antona could stop her.

The young Scartine, his back arched in a convulsion, was being held to the bed by two strong meditechs. A third was administering a spray to Rimbol’s chest. In the two days since she had seen him, he had lost weight, turned an odd shade of soft yellow, and his face was contorted by the frenzy that gripped his body.

“Not all have an easy time,” Antona said, taking her by the arm.

“Easy time!” Killashandra resisted Antona’s attempt to draw her from the room. “The fax said satisfactory. Is
this
condition considered satisfactory?”

Antona regarded Killashandra. “Yes, in one respect, his condition is satisfactory—he’s maintaining his own integrity with the symbiont. A massive change is occurring physically: an instinctive rejection on his part, a mutation on the symbiont’s. The computer prognosis gives Rimbol an excellent chance of making a satisfactory adjustment.”

“But . . .” Killashandra couldn’t drag her eyes from Rimbol’s writhing body. “Will I go like that, too?”

Antona ducked her head, hiding her expression, an evasion that irritated Killashandra.

“I don’t think that you will, Killashandra, so don’t fret. The results of the latest scan must be analyzed, but my initial reading indicates a smooth adaptation. You’ll be the first to know otherwise. Scant consolation, perhaps, but you
would
barge in here.”

Killashandra ignored the rebuke. “Have you computed how long he’ll be like that?”

“Yes, another day should see him over the worst of the penetration.”

“And Jezerey?

Antona looked blankly at Killashandra. “Oh, the girl who collapsed in the hangar yesterday? She’s fine—I amend that.” Antona smiled conciliatorily. “She is suffering from a predictable bout of hyperthermia at the moment and is as comfortable as we can make her.”

“Satisfactory, in fact?” Killashandra was consumed by bitterness for that misleading category but allowed Antona to lead her out of Rimbol’s room.

“Satisfactory in our terms and experience, yes. There are degrees, you must understand, of severity with which the symbiont affects the host and with which the host rejects the symbiont.” Antona shrugged. “If we knew all the ramifications and deviations, it would be simple to recruit only those candidates with the requisite chromosomes. It isn’t that simple, though our continuous research gets closer and closer to defining exact parameters.” She gave Killashandra another of her warm smiles. “We’re much better at selection than we used to be.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to know how lucky you are. And to hope that you’ll continue so fortunate. I work generally with self-treating patients, since I find the helpless depress me. Here we are.”

Antona opened a door at the end of the corridor and started to retrace her steps. Killashandra caught her arm.

“But Rimbol? I could see him?”

Another expressive shrug. “If you wish. Your belongings will be along shortly. Go settle in,” she said more kindly. “Program the air conditioner and rest. There’s nothing more to be done now. I’ll inform you of the analysis as soon as I have the results.”

“Or I’ll inform you,” Killashandra said with wry humor.

“Don’t dwell on the possibility,” Antona advised her.

Killashandra didn’t. The room, the third she’d had in as many weeks, was designed for ease in dealing with patients, though all paraphernalia was absent. The lingering odors of illness seeped in from the hall, and the room seemed to generate antiseptic maskers. It took Killashandra nearly an hour to find a pleasant counterodor with which to refresh her room. In the process, she learned how to intercept fax updates on the conditions of the other patients. Never having been ill or had occasion to visit a sick friend, she didn’t have much idea of what the printout meant, but as the patients were designated by room number, she could isolate Rimbol’s. His monitor showed more activity than the person in the next room, but she couldn’t bring herself to find out who his neighbor was.

That evening, Antona visited her room, head at a jaunty angle, the warm smile on her face.

“The prognosis is excellent. There’ll be no fever. We are keeping you on a few days just to be on the safe side. An easy transition is not always a safe one.” A chime wiped the smile from her face. “Ah, another patient. Excuse me.”

As soon as the door closed, Killashandra turned on the medical display. At the bottom, a winking green line warned of a new admission. That was how Killashandra came to see Borton being wheeled into the facility. The following day, Shillawn was admitted. The fax continued to display “satisfactory” after everyone’s condition. She supposed she agreed, having become fascinated with the life-signal graphs until the one on Rimbol’s neighbor unexpectedly registered nothing at all.

Killashandra ran down the hall. The door of the room was open, and half a dozen technicians could be seen bent over the bed. Antona wasn’t among them, but Killashandra caught a glimpse of Carigana’s wide-eyed face.

Whirling, she stormed into the chief medic’s office. Antona was hunching over an elaborate console, her hands graceful even in rapid motion on the keys.

“Why did Carigana die?” Killashandra demanded.

Without looking up from the shifting lights of the display, Antona spoke. “You have privileges in this Guild, Killashandra Ree, but not one gives you the right to disturb a chief of any rank. Nor me at this time. I want to know why she died more than you possibly could!”

Rightly abashed, Killashandra left the office. She hurried back to her room, averting her eyes as she passed the open door to Carigana’s. She was ashamed of herself, for she didn’t genuinely care that Carigana was dead, only that she had died. The space worker had really been an irritant, Killashandra thought candidly. Death had been a concept dealt with dramatically in the Music Center, but Carigana was Killashandra’s first contact with that reality. Death could also happen to her, to Rimbol, and she would be very upset if he died. Even if Shillawn died.

How long Killashandra sat watching the life-signs’ graphs, trying to ignore the discontinued one, she did not know. A courteous rap on the door was immediately followed by Antona’s entrance, and her weary expression told Killashandra that quite a few hours must have passed. Antona leaned against the door frame, expelling a long sigh.

“To answer your question—”

“I apologize for my behavior—”

“We don’t know why Carigana died,” Antona went on, inclining her head to accept the apology. “I have a private theory with no fact to support it. An intuition, if you will, that the desire to be acceptable, to surrender to the symbiont is as necessary to the process of adjustment as the physical stamina, which Carigana had, and those chromosomes which we have established as most liable to produce a favorable adaptation. You did want to become a Crystal Singer very much, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but so do the others.”

“Do they? Do they really?” Antona’s tone was curiously wistful.

Killashandra hesitated, only too aware of the inception of her own desire to become a Crystal Singer. If Antona’s theory held any merit, Killashandra should also be dead, certainly not so blatantly healthy.

“Carigana didn’t like anything. She questioned everything,” Killashandra said, drawn to give Antona what comfort she could. “She didn’t have to become a Crystal Singer.”

“No, she could have stayed in space.” Antona smiled thinly, pushed herself away from the wall, and then saw the graphs on the display. “So that’s how you knew. Well”—and she tapped the active graph in the left-hand corner—“that’s your friend, Rimbol. He’s more than just satisfactory now. The others are proceeding nicely. You can pack your things. I’ve no medical reason to keep you here longer. You’ll be far better off learning the techniques of staying alive in your profession, my dear, than sitting deathwatch here. Officially, you’re Lanzecki’s problem now. Someone’s coming for you.”

“I’m not going to get sick?”

“Not you. You’ve had what’s known as a Milekey transition. Practically no physical discomfort and the maximum adjustment. I wish you luck, Killashandra Ree. You’ll need it.” Antona was not smiling. Just then, the door opened wider. “Trag?” The chief meditech was surprised, but her affability returned, that moment of severity so brief that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined it. “I shall undoubtedly be seeing you again, Killashandra.”

She slipped out of the room as an unsmiling man of medium build entered. His first look at her was intent, but she’d survived the scrutiny of too many conductors to be daunted.

“I don’t have much to pack,” she said, unsmiling. She slid off the bed and swiftly gathered her belongings. He saw the lute before she picked it up, and something flickered across his face. Had he once played one?

She stood before him, carisak over her shoulder, aware that her heart was thumping. She glanced at the screen, her eyes going to Rimbol’s graph. How much longer before he was released? She nodded to Trag and followed him from the room.

Killashandra was soon to learn that Trag was reticent by nature, but as they made their way down the infirmary corridors, she was relieved to be conducted in silence. Too much had happened to her too fast. She realized now that she had feared her own life-signs would suddenly appear on the medical display. The sudden reprieve from that worry and her promotion out of the infirmary dazed her. She did not appreciate until later that Trag, chief assistant to the Guild Master in charge of training Crystal Singers, did not normally escort them.

As the lift panel closed on the infirmary level, Trag took her right hand and fastened a thin metal band around her wrist.

“You must wear this to identify you until you’ve been in the ranges.”

“Identify me?” The band fitted without hindering wrist movement, but the alloy felt oddly harsh on her skin. The sensation disappeared in seconds, so that Killashandra wondered if she had imagined the roughness.

“Identify you to your colleagues. And admit you to Singer privacies.”

Some inflection in his voice made the blood run hot to her cheeks but his expression was diffident. At that point, the lift panels opened.

“And it permits you to enter the Singer levels. There are three. This is the main one with all the general facilities.” She stepped with him into the vast, vaulted, subtly lit lobby. She felt nerves that had been strung taut in the infirmary begin to relax in moments. Massive pillars separated the level into sections and hallways, “The lift shaft,” Trag continued, “is the center of these levels of the complex. Catering, large-screen viewing, private dining, and assembly rooms are immediately about the shaft. Individual apartments are arranged in color quadrants, with additional smaller lifts to all other levels at convenient points on the outer arc. Your rooms are in the blue quadrant. This way.” He turned to the left and she followed.

“Are these my permanent quarters?” she asked, thinking how many she had had since meeting Carrik.

“With the Guild, yes.”

Once again, she caught the odd inflection in his voice. She supposed it must have something to do with her being out of the infirmary before any of the others of her class. She was curiously disjointed. She had experienced that phenomenon before, at the Music Center, on days when no one could remember lines or entrances or sing in correct tempi. One simply got through such times as best one could. And on this, certainly a momentous one in
her
life, acquiescence was difficult to achieve.

She nearly ran into Trag, who had halted before a door on the right-hand side of the hall. She was belatedly aware that they had passed recesses at intervals.