Authors: Anne McCaffrey
“You don’t understand. They are
very
different!” Andurs was becoming agitated in his effort to explain.
“I’ll never understand if you won’t be specific.”
“Well, I can.” Andurs almost leaped at her offer. “The Singer in the brown tunic—how old would you say he is? And don’t stare at them too hard. They can be offensive if irritated. Especially when they’re just off the Ranges like that set.”
Killashandra had noticed the brown-clad man; he was the tallest one and exuded some of the same magnetic quality that had distinguished Carrik.
“I’d say about second half of his third decade, perhaps beginning of his fourth.”
“I’m in my fourth and have been making this run for nine years standard. I know he’s been a Singer for at least nine decades because his name’s appeared on the passenger lists for my ship for that long.”
Killashandra glanced discreetly over at the subject in question. It was hard to believe the man was well over his first hundred years. Modern science delayed the worst ravages of physical degeneration but—
“So eternal youth is your gripe?”
“No, not mine. Frankly I wouldn’t want to have more than ten or twelve decades. It’s not just that Singers look young longer, though that does get at some, it’s—it’s other differences . . .”
“Psychological? Professional? Physical? Or financial?”
“Look, the point is, there are differences that the rest of us note, sense, feel, and resent in Singers!” Andurs was vehement now, pounding one fist into the other palm to emphasize his points. “Whatever it is separates you forever from the rest of mankind. Is that what you want?”
Killashandra gave the question due consideration before she looked Andurs in the eye and said, “Yes. Crystal Singers are a rigidly selected, highly trained professional minority. And I want to be a member of that sort of group. I’ve had some training in that direction already,” she added with a sour smile.
“Then your bringing Carrik back . . .” Andurs’ nostrils flared with suspicion, and he leaned away from her.
“Was what I owed the man,” she added hastily, for she didn’t like that expression to appear so soon, and for no cause, on Andurs’ face. She honestly had been motivated by regret for Carrik’s condition. “Who knows? I may not pass the requirements. It harms no one for me to try, does it?” She gave Andurs a sweet, somewhat tremulous smile. “I was not motivated toward any goal when I encountered Carrik, you see—”
“Then ship out with me—or on any of the other ships. This”—Andurs’ forefinger pointed at the floor—“is a dead end.”
Killashandra sneaked one more look at the Crystal Singers—proud, aloof, and curiously radiant. She contrived a thoughtful frown for Andurs’ benefit, but the group, remote and inaccessible, were indeed people apart, clearly marked by a subtle difference that set them above humans otherwise no less physically attractive or intelligent. This distinction would cause Singers to be singled out no matter where they were. Forever, Killashandra thought, as Stellar performers when basking in the applause of adoring audiences. Since she was deprived of the one, she would try for this.
“There is something about them . . .” she said aloud with a diffident lift of her shoulders and a wry smile. “You know, you’re right about the brew—” and she turned a more winning smile at Andurs.
“I’ll get more.”
She spent a pleasant evening with the captain, though she was glad that it was just an evening, for his limitations soon became apparent. Carrik had had many revelations for her. But when Andurs left for his ship at date change, it was only with expressions of regret and additional urgings for her to be on board. Though he was only going as far as Regulus Exchange, Killashandra could pick up a ship bound anywhere in the galaxy with her Guild voucher.
She thanked him, affecting more drowsiness than she felt, and left him with the notion that she had been swayed by his persuasions and person.
She didn’t learn until much later that his ship, the
Rag Blue Swan Delta
, had delayed departure until peremptorily forced to leave by an aggravated landing officer. By that time she was already in the Guild block of the base.
CHAPTER 4
A
rriving punctually at the beginning of business hours, Killashandra was not the only one so prompt. Some of the dozen or so milling about the large reception area were quite obviously buyers, peering at the display and jotting entries on their wrist units. The tall, thin young man was there. He looked startled to see Killashandra and swerved away from her. Just as Killashandra noted two men and a woman emerge from a panel in the far side of the dodecahedron, someone stamped in from the base entrance. Killashandra glimpsed a set, hard, angry face and the close-cropped hair of a space worker as the bone-thin figure of a female swept past her.
The chandelier responded to the vibrations of her passage and picked up the tone of her voice. From the resonance of the chiming artform, Killashandra knew the woman was making demands. What surprised Killashandra more was that the Guild woman did not pay any attention, her head remaining bent over the module. The angry space worker repeated her question, sharp enough now for Killashandra to hear that the woman was demanding to be taken immediately for testing as a Guild candidate.
Suddenly, one of the Guildsmen, excusing himself from his conversation with a buyer, touched the programmer on her arm, directing her gaze to the now irate space worker. Another angry spate of words jarred the crystal drops, although the Guild programmer seemed not the least disturbed either by her discourtesy or the space worker’s ire. In the next moment, the panel at the back of the room opened again, and the space worker moved toward it, her head set at an aggressive angle, her stride jarring her slender frame. The panel closed behind her.
A sigh attracted Killashandra’s attention, and she turned to find a young man standing beside her. He would have deserved a second look anywhere, for be possessed close-curled red hair, a recessive trait rarer now than the true blond. He had evidently watched the interchange between the space worker and the Guild programmer as if he had anticipated such a confrontation. His sigh had been one of relief.
“She made it,” he murmured under his breath, and then, noticing Killashandra, smiled at her. His unusually light-green eyes twinkled in mischief. The antipathy Killashandra had instinctively felt for the space worker was replaced by an instant affinity to the young man. “She’s been in a snit, that one, the whole journey here. Thought she’d go through the debarkation arch like a projectile when it started laying on the formality. And after all that . . .” He spread his hands wide to express his astonishment at her ease.
“There’s more to it than going through a doorway,” Killashandra said.
“Don’t I just know it, but there was no telling Carigana. For starters, she was annoyed that I got to do the prelim at Yarro on Beta VI. As if it were a personal affront to her that she had to come all the way here.” He stepped closer to Killashandra as a knot of people, buyers from their varied manner of dress, entered. “Have you taken the plunge yet?” And then he held up his hand, grinning so winningly when Killashandra stiffened at such a flagrant breach of privacy that she couldn’t, after all, take offense. “I’m from Scartine, you know, and I keep forgetting manners. Besides, you don’t look like a buyer”—his comment was complimentary for he gestured with good-humored contempt at the finery of most of the other occupants of the hall—“and transients would never venture further than the catering area, so you must be interested in crystal singing . . .” He raised his eyebrows as well as the tone of his voice in question.
It would have taken a far more punctilious person than Killashandra to depress his ingenuous manner, but she answered with the briefest of smiles and a nod.
“Well, because I’ve been through the prelim, I’ve only to report my presence, but if I were you, though I’m not, and it’s certainly not my wish to invade your privacy, I’d give Carigana a chance to get organized before I followed her in.” Then he cocked his head, grinning with a sparkle at odds with his guilelessness. “Unless you’re hanging back with second thoughts.”
“I’ve thoughts but none of them seconds,” Killashandra said. “You did the prelim at Yarro?”
“Yes, you know the tests.”
“SG-1’s, I hear.”
He shrugged diffidently. “Medigear feels the same for all levels, and if you’re adjusted, the psych is nothing. Aptitude’s aptitude and a fast one, but you look like you’ve done tertiary studies, so what’s to knot your hair over?” His expression was sharp as his eyes flicked to the wall through which Carigana had passed. “If you’ve got hair!”
“Those tests—they’re not complicated, or painful, or anything?. . .” The tall nervous young man had sidled up to them without either noticing his approach.
Killashandra frowned slightly with displeasure, but the other young man grinned encouragingly.
“No sweat, no stress, no strength exerted, man. A breeze,” and he planed his hand in a smooth gesture indicating ease. “All I got to do now is go up to the panel, knock on the door, and I’m in.” He snapped the shoulder strap of his carisak.
“You’ve been given the full disclosure?” the dark-haired man asked.
“Not yet.” The red-head grinned again. “That’s the next step and only done here.”
“Shillawn Agus Vartry,” the other said formally, raising his right hand, fingers spread in the galactic gesture that indicated cooperation without weapon.
“Rimbol C-hen-stal-az” was the red-head’s rejoinder.
Killashandra wasn’t in the mood to be drawn into further conversation about applying for Guild membership, not with this Shillawn swallowing and stammering his way to a decision. She accorded Rimbol a smile and the salute as she backed away courteously before veering toward the module with more assurance than she felt. Once there, she spread her fingers wide where the movement would catch the woman’s eye.
“I’d like to apply for membership to the Heptite Guild,” she said when the woman raised her head. Killashandra had meant to say she wanted to become a Crystal Singer, but the words had shifted in her mind and mouth with uncharacteristic discretion. Perhaps Carigana’s very bad example had tempered her approach.
The programmer inclined her head in acknowledgment of the request, her fingers flashing across the terminal keys. “If you will proceed through that entrance.” She motioned toward the opening panel in the wall.
Killashandra could just imagine how anticlimactic that mild phrase must have been for the storming Carigana. She smiled to herself as the panel closed behind her without so much as a sigh. Exit Killashandra Ree softly and with no fanfare.
She found herself in a short corridor, with a series of color-coded and design-patched doors on either side, and made for one that opened quietly. Just as she entered the room from one door, a man with an odd crook to one shoulder entered from another. He gave her such a quick searching look that she felt certain he had had to greet Carigana.
“You agree to submit to SG-1 examinations of physical, psychological, and aptitudinal readiness? Please state your name, planet of origin, and whatever rank you hold. This information is being processed under the Federated Sentient Planets’ conditions regarding admission into the Heptite Guild of Ballybran.” He ran through the speech in two breaths, staring expectantly at her while her mind caught up with his rote comments.
“Yes, I, Killashandra Ree of Fuerte, agree to the examinations. Rank, tertiary student in performing arts, released.”
“This way, please, Killashandra Ree.” She followed him into an anteroom, the usual examination facility. The panel on one door blazed red, and Killashandra supposed that Carigana was within, being subjected to the same tests she was about to undergo.
She was shown to the next cubicle, which held the couch and hood that were standard physical diagnostic equipment for her species. Without a word, she settled herself on the couch as comfortably as possible, inured since childhood to the procedures, to the slightly claustrophobic sensation as the upper half of the diagnostic unit swung down over her. She didn’t mind the almost comforting pressure of the torso unit or the tight grip across one thigh and the hard weight on her left shin, but she never could get used to the constricting headpiece and the pressures against eyes, temple, and jaw. But cerebral and retinal scanning were painless, and one never felt the acupuncture that deadened the leg for the blood, bone marrow, and tissue samples. The other pressures for organ readings, muscle tone, heat and cold tolerances, sound sensitivity, were as nothing to the final pain-threshold jolt. She had heard about but never experienced the pain-threshold gamut—and hoped never to have to do so again.
Just as she was about to scream from the stimuli applied to her nerve centers the apparatus abruptly retracted. As her nervous system tingled with the aftereffect, she did groan and massaged the back of her neck to ease muscles that had tensed in that split second of measurable agony.
“Take this restorative now, please,” the meditech said, entering the room. He gave her a glass of carbonated green liquid. “Set you right. And if you’ll just sit here,” he added as a comfortable padded chair rolled to the center of the room while the medigear slid to the left. “When you are recovered, press the button on the right chair arm, and the psychological test will begin. A verbal address system is used. Responses are, of course, recorded, but I’m sure you’re familiar with the procedures by now.”
The drink did clear the last miasma of the threshold test from her senses, making her feel incredibly alert. All the better preparation for psychological testing.
Killashandra had always had mixed feelings about that sort of evaluation—so much might depend on one’s frame of mind at that particular hour, day, and year. She experienced her usual halfhearted desire to give all the wrong answers, but this was coupled with the keen awareness of self-competition. Too much depended on the exams. She had no need to play any of the games she might have risked at other levels and times. She could not, however, comprehend the purpose of some questions that had never been asked during any other evaluation session. Of course, she’d never applied to the Heptite Guild before, so their criteria were bound to be different. Nor had she undergone a computerized verbal address psych test before, which was generally conducted face to face with a human examiner.
Toward the last few moments of the session, the speed of questioning increased to the point where she was actually sweating to produce answers to the displayed questions in an effort to keep up the pace.
She could still feel her heart racing when the Guild man returned, this time bearing a tray with steaming food packs.
“Your aptitude tests will be presented after you’ve eaten and rested. You may request entertainment from the fax or sleep.” At his words, a contour couch appeared from a storage area. “When you are ready, inform the computer and the final examination will begin.”
Killashandra was ravenous and found the nutritious meal delicious. She sipped the hot beverage slowly and asked for soothing Optherian “balances” to clear her mind of the tensions caused by the last portion of the psych tests.
In her previous evaluation sessions, the manner of the human attendants had often indicated the level of her performance—and she was accustomed to scoring high. But the Guild tech had been so impersonal, she couldn’t guess how she was doing.
After she’d finished her meal, she elected to continue and signaled her readiness. Whereupon she was tested for pitch, the severest evaluation of that faculty she’d ever endured, including estimates of vibrational errors and unnerving subliminal noises below 50 and above 18,000 cycles. That recorded, the testing moved on to deceptively complex hand-eye coordinations that again left her drenched with sweat. She was run through a series of depth-perception exams and spatial relationships. The latter had always been one of her strong points, but by the time the session was over, she was wrung out with fatigue and was shaking.
Maybe it was wishful thinking on her part, but when the meditech returned, she fancied something of respect in his glance.
“Killashandra Ree, since you have completed the first day’s examinations up to standard, you are now the guest of the Guild. We have taken the liberty of transferring your personal effects to more comfortable quarters in the Guild block. If you will follow me . . .”
Ordinarily, such an action, taken without her consent, would have constituted an invasion of privacy, but her energies were too depleted for her to summon up a protest. She was led deeper into the Guild block, down three levels from the main and the only entrance, or exit, to the rest of Shankill Base. Her easy penetration of the hallowed precinct amused rather than alarmed her. There was really no need for her to be isolated from the rest of the base population after what were very standard examinations. Except for the pain-threshold test, she had nothing to warn any other prospective applicant about. Unsuccessful applicants would be more dangerous to the Guild because of their disappointment. What happened to them, she wondered? What, for instance, had become of the angry Carigana? She’d be glad to be out of that one’s vicinity in the event of her failure. And where were Rimbol and that irritating, twitchy young man, that Shillawn something?
How far into the Guild did she have to go to get this free room and board, she wondered, fatigue irritating her. She desired nothing more than to stretch out and sleep. She felt as drained as she had the night of the final student concert. How long ago was that now? In terms of distance or time? She had no patience with her own conundrums. How much farther now?
The Guild man had paused at a door, which slid open.
“If you’ll put your print on file, you will find your belongings within. At the end of this corridor is a common lounge, although you will also find catering facilities in your room. Tomorrow you will be summoned for the final phase.”
A bleep from the man’s wrist-unit curtailed any questions she might have asked; for he acknowledged the reminder, inclined his head politely to her and retraced his steps.
She placed her thumb in the depression for the print lock and entered her new accommodation. It was not only larger—spacious in comparison to the hostel room—it was also more luxuriously appointed. A chair was drawn up to a small table, already set with a beaker of brew from the catering panel, which was lit. Killashandra gratefully sampled the drink, noting that the menufax was set to fish selections. She wondered just how much information the Guild had already had programmed about her since she had given her name, planet of origin, and rank. Deliberately, she spun the display to other proteins and ordered what was described as a hearty casserole of assorted legumes and a light wine.