Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“Get her back to the shuttle.”
“Is it
safe
?”
“Of course, it’s safe. The link works! The whole system knows that now!”
“Through this door, lieutenant. You’ll have to detour. The crowd is blocking your way to the shuttle.”
“We don’t have time to detour.”
“We’ll break through the crowd. Carry her first. That’ll make them give way!”
“They can’t be afraid of a woman!”
“She’s not a woman. She’s a Crystal Singer!”
Killashandra was aware of being carried through a dense crowd. She heard a rapid clattering, and loud but jubilant cries and, somewhere in the section of her brain that recorded impressions, she correlated sound and cheers with applause. So many people in such proximity was an unexpected torture.
“Get me out of here,” she whispered hoarsely, clutching the man who carried her with desperate hands.
He said nothing but quickened his pace, his breathing ragged with effort. He could barely disentangle himself from her when a second man came to his assistance.
“This delay may abort the whole intercept.”
“Captain, we’d no idea how feelings ran here. No warning that there’d be such a crowd. We’re almost there now.”
“If we’ve lost the window—”
“We’ll have a frigate standing by ready to catch up—”
“Do shut up and let me sleep. Stop joggling me so.”
“Sleep?” The indignation in Francu’s voice roused her briefly from her torpor. “Sleep she wants when—”
“Just settle yourself in this seat, Killashandra. I’ll do the webbing.”
“Drink. Need a drink. Anything. Water.”
“Not now. Not now.”
“Yes, now! I thirst.”
“Captain, you fly. Here’s water, Killashandra.”
She drank deeply, aware that the substance was water, real water, crisp, clear, cool water, used only this once, for her consumption. Some of it spilled when she was jolted about, and she protested the loss, licking it from her hands. She was shoved away from the water by a tremendous force and pleaded to be given more to drink.
She was soothed, and then finally the weight was lifted, and she was given as much as she wanted to drink.
“Are you all right now, Killashandra?” She rather thought it was Tallaf asking.
“Yes. Now all I need is sleep. Just let me sleep until I wake.”
CHAPTER 13
W
aking up was a gradual and remarkably languorous process. Killashandra felt that she was unfolding in sections, starting with her mind, which sent out sleepy messages to her extremities that movement was possible again. She went through a long series of stretchings and yawnings, interspersed with rather wild and vivid flashes. At first, she thought them picodreams but then realized that all were from one viewpoint: hers! And she was overwhelmed by faces and applause and light flashing from the blackening crystal. An orgasmic sensation in her loins completed her unfolding and brought her to sharp consciousness and regret. Those half dreams had been lovely echoes of the linkage with black crystal.
Crystal! She sat up in bed and nearly caught her head on the bedside shelf. She was on the wretched cruiser! She glanced at her wrist-unit, confirming it with the cabin time display.
“Three days! I’ve been asleep three days!” Antona had warned her.
Killashandra lay back, easing shoulder and tightening back muscles. She must have slept all three days in one position to have such cramps.
A soft scratching at her door panel caught her attention.
“Yes?”
“Are you awake, Guild Member?”
There were several answers she would have given if she hadn’t recognized Chasurt’s voice.
“You may enter.”
“Are you awake?”
“I certainly wouldn’t be answering you in my sleep. Come in!” As the door panel slid open, she added, “And would you ask Pendel if he can supply me with something decent to eat?”
“I will ascertain if food is advisable,” the man said, holding in her direction a diagnostic tool similar to Antona’s.
“Not the stodge that’s served in the cruiser’s mess but liquid and fruit—”
“If you’ll just be cooperative—”
“I am!” Killashandra felt that attitude rapidly changing. “This sort of sleep phase is perfectly normal—”
“We haven’t been able to contact Ballybran for specific instructions—”
“For what?”
“Proper treatment of your prolonged coma—”
“I wasn’t
in
a coma. Did you not check the printout in your own medical library? I want something to drink. And eat.”
“I am the cruiser’s meditech—”
“Who has never met a Crystal Singer before and knows nothing of
my
occupational hazards.” Killashandra had pulled on the nearest piece of clothing, her Guild coverall. Now she swung herself off the bunk and lurched past Chasurt, who made a vain attempt to grab her. “Pendel!” Killashandra started down the corridor. She surprised herself that she could maneuver so readily after the exhaustion that had overtaken her. The symbiont might take, but it also gave.
“Guild Member!” Chasurt was in pursuit, but she had the head start and longer legs.
She turned again, into the super’s corridor, and saw Tic at Pendel’s door, and then his head was visible.
“Pendel? I’m perishing for a glass of Yarran beer! Please say you have some fruit left? And possibly a cup of that excellent soup you served me some time a hundred years ago?”
By the time she reached his door, Pendel handed her a half-empty glass of Yarran beer for one hand and a fruit for the other. She squeezed past him and Tic, leaving them to block Chasurt.
“There you are, Killashandra,” Pendel said, standing across the doorway so that Chasurt could not barge in. Tic moved staunchly in front of Killashandra as the second line of defense. “More fruit within hand. Now, Chasurt, don’t get yourself knotted. Come with me, and you can add whatever nutrients and restoratives you feel are required to the soup I’m getting Killashandra. Put those stupid sprays back into your pockets. Crystal Singers don’t ordinarily require any medication. Don’t you know anything beyond space-freeze and laser burn?”
Pendel hurried Chasurt away, signaling Tic to close the door and stand guard. Killashandra had finished the beer and started on the fruit. She closed her eyes with relief as juice and pulp soothed her parched mouth. She ate slowly, an instinct imposed on her by the symbiont, which knew very well what it required after fasting. With distaste, she remembered the mad hungers of pre-Passover and was grateful that the affliction had waned.
“Ma’am? . . .”
Killashandra only heard the soft whisper because there was no other sound in the cabin but her chewing.
“Tic?” It was the first time the girl had addressed her.
“Ma’am—thank you for the crystal!” Tic blurted her words. “Comofficer let me speak with my mother on Copper. Right away. No waiting. No worrying that something’s gone wrong and I wouldn’t hear . . . Comoff says with crystals I can call Copper any time I want!” Tic’s eyes were round and liquid.
“I’m happy for you, Tic. I’m happy for you.” Killashandra thought that response a little graceless on her part, but Tic’s awed response embarrassed her.
The panel was suddenly whipped aside, and Tic tried not to fall into Killashandra’s lap as Captain Francu, radiating fury, stood in the opening.
“My medic tells me that you have refused his assistance.” The cubicle was too small for his oppressive anger.
“I do not need his assistance. I am a Crystal Singer—”
“While you are on board my vessel, you are under my orders—”
Killashandra rose, pushing Tic into the seat she had vacated, facing the captain with a wrath far more profound than his. From her thigh pouch, she produced the Guild ident and shoved it at the captain.
“Even you must recognize this authority!”
Pendel arrived at that moment, carrying a laden tray.
“Federated Sentient Planet Sessions authority!” Pendel gasped as he read, and the tray wavered in his grasp. “I’ve only seen one other.”
“You are clearly suffering from aberrant behavior following a period of deprivation—” the captain began.
“Nonsense. Hand me that tray, Pendel. Thank you.”
“Guild Member, attend me!”
“I am, but I’m also eating, as my body needs sustenance after my long rest.”
“You were in coma—”
“I was doing what all Crystal Singers do, resting after a difficult and exhausting assignment. And that is all I wish to say until I’ve eaten.”
“You are mentally affected, shoving an FSP authority at me to obtain food.” Captain Francu was sputtering now.
“That authority will be invoked as soon as I find out the nearest transfer station—”
“You are to remain on this cruiser until the Five Systems’ Satellite—”
“I will remain on this cruiser only as long as it takes me to call up a shuttle or cutter or gig from the next system. And my authority permits me to do so. Right?”
“Right,” Pendel affirmed.
The captain glared at him and stared for a moment longer at Killashandra, speechless with suppressed anger. Then he turned on one heel and stamped down the corridor.
Tic was regarding Killashandra in white-faced perturbation.
“That’s all right, now, girl,” Pendel said to her soothingly. “You will, of course, discuss this with no one no matter how you are pressed. I don’t think Captain Francu will care to remember the incident.”
“How soon can I get off this ship? No offense to you and Tic, of course.”
Pendel edged himself in front of his keyboard and tapped a code. It took longer than usual for the display to start rippling across the screen, and there were only four lines.
“I wouldn’t suggest that one. Drone tanker and primitive food supplies.” Pendel tapped again. The printout was denser. “Ah. We can arrange a transfer to a small but adequate changeover station for a Selkite direct to Scoria. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t recommend Selkites for any reason, but you’d be the only passenger in their oxygen life-support section.”
“Grand! I’ll take it.”
“Means another three days aboard us.”
“I’ll sleep a good deal of the time. Light meals when I need ’em.”
“There’s just one thing,” and Pendel cleared his throat, ducking his head from her glance. “The Selkite reaches Ballybran just toward the end of the Passover storms. The original E.T.A. would land you well after they’d completed.”
“Oh, you’ve been doing some retrieving, have you?” Killashandra grinned.
Pendel winked, laying his finger along his nose. “I did feel some objective information a wise precaution.”
“So Chasurt decided the storms produced my mental aberrations?”
“Some such conclusion.”
“No fool goes out in Passover storms. We leave the planet if at all possible. If not, sleep through it!”
“I had heard the rumor that Crystal Singers hibernated.”
“Something of the sort.”
“Well, well. Have another Yarran beer, Killashandra?”
Whatever caused Pendel such satisfaction, he preferred to keep to himself, but they enjoyed several glasses until drowsiness overcame her again. Pendel escorted her back to her cabin where Tac stood very much on duty. Small light meals were arranged, and Killashandra lay down to sleep, fervently blessing the forethought that had provided her with the FSP authority. And what had Francu intended to do with her if he had managed to overrule her? Give her to Chasurt to find out why Crystal Singers are different?
She wasn’t well pleased to have to spend a few more days on the cruiser, but she could sleep and relax, now that the pressures of installation were behind her. And she had completed those well. Trag would be pleased with her. Even if some percentage of the Trundimoux were not. Pity about that!
Still, they’d given her a big hand. She’d knocked herself out to give them a new tradition. Her performance at the planet installation had turned an angry mob into a jubilant throng. Yes, she’d done well as a Crystal Singer.
Would she ever again be able to experience that incredible surge of contact as black crystal segments linked? That all-enveloping surge as if she were aligned with every black crystal in the galaxy?
She shuddered with the aching desire. She turned from that thought. There would be other such times; of that she was now certain. Meanwhile, once the storms of Ballybran were over, she could sing crystal.
Sing crystal? Sing?
Killashandra began to laugh, recalling herself as she strode into the planetary communications building, stage center with a near riot occurring around her. She, playing the high priestess, completing the ritual that linked the isolated elements of the Trundimoux! A solo performance if ever there was one. And she had played before an audience of an entire system. What an opening note she had struck with crystal! What an ovation! Echoes from distant satellites. She had done exactly as she had once boasted she’d do, had arrogantly proclaimed to her peers in Fuerte that she would do. She had been the first Singer in this system and possibly the only Crystal Singer ever to appear in Trundimoux.
Killashandra laughed at the twisted irony of circumstance. She laughed and then cried because there was no one to know except herself that she had achieved an ambition.
Killashandra Ree was a Singer, right enough. Truly a Crystal Singer!
Reprise
“W
hat are you doing back now?” the lock attendant demanded as she entered. “Wough? What sort of transport were you on? You reek.”
“Selkite,” Killashandra said grimly. She had become used to her own fragrance within the Selkite’s O-breather quarters.
“There’s some ships no one will travel on. Pity you weren’t warned.” He was pinching his nostrils closed.
“I’ll remember, I assure you.”
She started for the Guild’s transient quarters.
“Hey, there’s vo vacancies. Passover storms aren’t over yet, you know.”
“I know, but getting here was more important than waiting the storms out.”
“Not if you had to travel Selkite. But there’s plenty of space in the regular quarters,” and the man, thumbed the archway that she had entered so naively a few months before. “No travelers here yet. Doesn’t make any difference with your credit where you stay, you know.”
Killashandra thanked him and walked on through the blue-irised entrance toward the hostel, trying to remember the girl she’d been at that point and unable to credit how much had occurred since then. Including the simultaneous realization of two ambitions.
The aroma she exuded alerted Ford, still at his reception counter.
“But you’re a Singer. You oughtn’t to be here.” His nose wrinkled, and he shuddered, licking his lips. “Singers have their own quarters.”
“Full up. Just give me a room and let me fumigate myself.”
Killashandra advanced to the counter to put her wrist unit to the plate.
“No, no, that won’t be necessary!” Ford handed her the key, his arm stretching out to keep as much distance from her as possible.
“I know I’m bad, but am I that bad?”
Ford tried to stammer an apology, but Killashandra let the key guide her to her quarters.
“I’ve given you the biggest we have.” Ford’s voice followed her through the hallway.
The room was down a level, and assuming that the lock attendant had been correct—that there were no visitors at that time—Killashandra began ripping off her stinking clothes. The key warmed at the appropriate room, and she shoved through the panel, shutting it and leaning against the door to shuck off her pants and footwear. She looked at the carisak and decided there was no point in fumigating those things. She stuffed everything into the disposal unit with a tremendous sense of relief.
The Shankill accommodation had only shower facilities but a decent array of herb and fragrance washes. She stood under the jets, as hot as the spray would come, then laved herself until her skin was raw. She stepped out of the shower enclosure, smelling her hands and her shoulders, bending to sniff her knees, and decided that she was possibly close to decontaminated.
It was only drying her hair that she realized she didn’t have any fresh clothes to put on. She dialed the commissary and ordered the first coverall that appeared on the fax, then keyed for perfumes and ordered a large bottle of something spicy. She needed some spice in her life after the Selkite vessel. Well, Pendel had tried to warn her. Come to consider, even the Selkites were better than remaining in the vicinity of Francu or that bonehead Chasurt.
Then she remembered to take out her lenses and sighed with relief as color, decent soothing color, sprang up around the room.
She ordered a Yarran beer and wondered how Lanzecki had weathered Passover. Immured by herself in the Selkite ship, she had come to terms with lingering feelings of resentment for the Guild Master and wanted very much to continue in friendship with the man. Solitude was a great leveler: stinking solitude made one grateful for remembered favors and kindness. She owed Lanzecki more of those than accusations.
The beer was so good! She lifted her beaker in a toast to Pendel. She hoped that for every Francu she met, there would be at least one Pendel to be grateful for.
The door chime sounded. She wrapped a dry towel around her, wondering why her order was being delivered instead of sent by tube. She released the door lock and was about to slide the panel back when it was moved from without.
“What are you doing back here?” Lanzecki stepped into the room, looming angrily above her in the narrow confines. He closed the panel behind him and lobbed a parcel in the direction of the bed.
“What are you doing on Shankill?” She tried to tighten the towel above her breasts.
He brought both bands to his belt and stared at her, his eyes glittering, his face set in the most uncompromising lines, his mouth still.
“Shankill affords the most strategic point from which to assess the storm flows.”
“Then you do escape from the storms,” she said with intense relief.
“As I wanted you to escape them, but you’re back here days early!” He swept an angry gesture with one arm as if he wanted to strike her.
“Why not?” Killashandra had to stand her ground before him. “I’d finished the wretched installations. Were the storms as bad as predicted? I’ve heard nothing.”
“You were scheduled to return on a comfortable passenger frigate seven days from now.” He scrutinized her closely. “The damage could have been worse,” he added grudgingly. She wasn’t sure whether he referred to her or the storms.
“I took the Selkite freighter.”
“I’m aware of that.” His nostrils flared with distaste.
“I’ve tried to decontaminate. It was awful. Why wasn’t I told about Selkites? No, I was, but I wouldn’t listen because I couldn’t stay one more moment on that fardling Trundie cruiser.” The towel was coming loose as she remembered Francu. “Why didn’t you at least warn me about the Trundies?”
Lanzecki shrugged. “We didn’t have much on them, but you at least had no preconceptions or the residue of partial memories of other isolated systems to prejudice your actions.”
“They may never deal with another Crystal Singer.”
“They’ll deal with the Guild.” Lanzecki was smiling, his body relaxing, his eyes warming.
“More important, Lanzecki”—and she tried to step back, away from him until she’d aired her grievances—“why didn’t you tell me about link-shock? I sang the king crystal, link and all, and they brought me to my knees.”
“Link-shock’s about the only thing that would.” He put his warm hands on her shoulders and held her firmly, his eyes examining her face. “No one can describe link-shock. It’s experienced on different levels by different personalities. To warn is to inhibit.”
“I can certainly appreciate that!”
He chuckled at her sarcastic comment and began to draw her to him, his embrace as much of an apology as he was ever likely to give her.
“Some people feel nothing at all.”
“I’m sorry for them.” She was not sarcastic now.
“For you, Killashandra, to link a set of crystals you yourself cut binds you closer to black crystal.” He spoke slowly, again with the hidden pain that she had once before heard in his voice. She let herself be drawn against his strong body, realizing how keenly she had missed him even as she had damned him, grateful now to give and receive comfort. “The Guild needs black-crystal Singers.”
“Is that why you’ve personally guided my career, Lanzecki?” She reached her hand to his lips, feeling them curve in amusement.
“My professional life is dedicated to the Guild, Killashandra. Never forget that. My personal life is another matter, entirely private.” His lips moved sensuously across her fingers as he spoke.
“I like you, Lanzecki—damn your mouth.” She bubbled with laughter and the joy of being with him again.
He took her hand and kissed the palm, the contact sending chills through her body.
“In the decades ahead of us, Killashandra,
try
to keep that in mind?”