Crystal Singer (29 page)

“Now, several unexpected elements are in display. One”—and he ate a spoonful of small brilliant green spheres—“you brought in five medium black crystals for which we have received an urgent request.” He waved his empty spoon at the printout layers on his desk. “Two, you have no sled, nor can Manufacturing produce a replacement before the Passover storms. Which, by the way, were heralded by that unpredicted blow in the Bay area. Short, hard, but destructive. Even though conjunction occurs over the seas north and east of this continent, Passover is going to be particularly nasty, as it coincides with spring solstice. Weather is generally cyclical on Ballybran, and the pattern which has been emerging coincides with ’63 . . . 2863GY, that is—eat, don’t gawk. Surely you have wandered through data retrieval, Killashandra, and discovered how long I’ve been a member. Fuerte cannot have eradicated human curiosity, or you wouldn’t be here.”

She swallowed as the significance of his qualifying the century occurred to her.

“But not how long you’ve been Guild Master.”

He chuckled at her quick reply, passing a dish of stewed orange-and-green milsi stalks to her. “Excellent for trace minerals. The Passover turbulence will be phenomenal even in terms of Ballybran’s meteorological history. Which, I might add, goes back further than I do. Don’t choke now!” he rose to give her a deft thump between her shoulder blades. “Even the infirmary level will shake. You, so recently exposed to crystal for the first time, will be severely affected by the stress. I can, as Guild Master, order you off Ballybran,” and his face fell into harsh immobile lines, impersonal and implacable. But his mouth softened when he saw her determined expression. “However, I would prefer that you cooperate. The five blacks you brought in are currently, if you’ll forgive the pun, being tuned and should be ready for shipment. I would
like
to assign you to take them to the Trundimoux System and install them.”

“This duty will provide me with the margin of credit for my future foolishness?”

Lanzecki chuckled appreciatively.

“Think about the assignment while you eat some fried steakbean.”

“It is, then, a suggestion?” she asked around a large mouthful of tasty legume.

“It is—now—a suggestion.” His face, mouth, and tone were bland. “The storms will soon be hammering the ranges and forcing Singers in. Others would undertake the assignment happily, especially those who haven’t cut enough crystal to get off-world at Passover.”

“I thought Passover was an incredible spectacle.”

“It is. Raw natural forces at their most destructive.” A lift to his shoulders suggested that it was a spectacle to which he was inured and yet . . .

“Do
you
leave during Passover?”

He gave her a keen glance, his dark eyes reflecting the spotlights over his work desk.

“The Guild Master is always accessible during Passover.” He offered her some lemon-yellow cubes. “A sharpish cheese, but it complements the steakbean.”

“Hmmm. Yes, it does.”

“Help yourself.” He rose and took the next dishes from the catering slot, which had been maintaining them at the appropriate heat. “Will you have something to drink?”

“Yarran beer, please.” She had a sudden craving for the taste of hops.

“Good choice. I’ll join you.”

She glanced at him, arrested by some slight alteration of tone, but his back was to her.

“Rimbol’s from Scartine, isn’t he?” Lanzecki asked, returning with a pitcher and two beakers. He poured with a proper respect for the head of foam. “He should cut well in the darker shades. Perhaps black, if he can find a vein.”

“How could you tell?”

“A question of resonance, also of the degree of adaptation. Jezerey will do lighter blues, pinks, paler greens. Borton will also tend to cut well in the darker. I hope they team up.”

“Do you know who will cut what?”

“I am not in a position to imply anything, merely venture an informed guess. After all, the Guild has been operating for over four hundred years galactic, all that time collecting and collating information on its members. It would show a scandalous want of probity not to attempt more than merely a determination of probability of adjustment to Ballybran spore symbiosis.”

“You sound like Borella’s come-all-ye pitch,” Killashandra replied.

Lanzecki’s lips twitched in an amusement that was echoed by the sparkle in his brilliant eyes. “I do believe I’m quoting—but whom, I’ve forgotten. How about some pepper fruit? Goes with the beer. I’ve ordered some ices to clear the palate. A very old and civilized course but not one taken with beer.” As he passed her the plate, the tangy scent of the long thin furry fingers did tempt her to try one. “As I was saying, by the time candidates are through the Shankill checkpoint, as many variables as can be resolved have been.” He began to pile empty plates and dishes into one untidy stack, and she realized that while he had sampled everything, she had eaten far more. Yet she didn’t feel uncomfortably full. “You ought to have been shown the probability graph,” he said, frowning as he rose. He tossed the discards deftly into the waste chute before pausing yet again at the catering slot.

“We were.” She nibbled at another pepper fruit while wondering why his face showed no trace of aging. He wasn’t singing crystal anymore, but that was the ostensible reason for the specious youthfulness. “We were told nothing about individual capabilities or forecasts.”

“Why should you be? That would create all sorts of unnecessary problems.” He set two dishes of varicolor sherbets, two wine glasses, and a frosty bottle on the table.

“I couldn’t eat another thing.”

“No? Try a spoonful of the green. Very settling to the stomach and clears the mouth.” He seated himself and poured the wine. “The one critical point is still adaptation. The psychological attitude, Antona feels, rather than the physical. That space worker, Carigana, should not have died.” Lanzecki’s expression was one of impersonal regret. “We can generally gauge the severity of transition and are prepared for contingencies.”

Killashandra thought of the smooth disappearances of Rimbol and Mistra during the night, of meditechs collecting Jezerey before she had fallen to the plascrete. She also recalled her indignation over “condition satisfactory.”

“How do you like the wine?”

“Does it have to be
so
mechanical?”

“The wine?”

“The whole process.”

“Every care is taken, my dear Killashandra,” and Lanzecki’s tone reminded her incontrovertibly that he was Guild Master and that the procedure she wished to protest was probably of his institution.

“The wine’s fine.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it.” His response was as dry as the wine. “Not much is left to chance in recruiting. Tukolom may be a prosy bore, but he has a curious sensitivity to illness which makes him especially effective in his role as tutor.”

“Then it was known that I—”

“You were not predicted.” He used the slightest pause between each word for emphasis, and raising his glass to her, took a sip.

“And . . .” it was not coquetry in Killashandra that caused her to prompt him but the strongest feeling that he had been about to add a rider to that surprise comment.

“And certainly not a Milekey, nor resonant to black crystal. Perhaps”—and his quick reply did, she was positive, mask thoughts unspoken—“we should initiate handling crystal with recruits as soon as possible. But”—and he shrugged—“we can’t program convenient storms which require all-member participation.”

“Rimbol said you couldn’t have planned that storm.”

“Perceptive of him. How did those ices go down?”

“They went.” She was surprised to find dish, bottle, and wine glasses empty.

“Fine. Than we can start on more.”

“More?” But already a pungent spicy odor emanating from the caterer had sharpened her appetite. “I’ll bloat.”

“Very unlikely. Had you gone out with your class, this is exactly what would have been served on your return from the ranges. Yarran beer, since you have cultivated a taste for it, would be appropriate to wash down the spicefish.” He dialed for more. “Beer has also, for millennia, had another normal effect on the alimentary system.”

His comment, delivered in a slightly pompous tone, made her laugh. So she ate the spicefish, drank the beer, responded to certain natural effects of it, and, at one point, realized that Lanzecki had coaxed, diverted, bullied her into continuously consuming food for nearly three hours. By then, her satiation was such that when Lanzecki casually repeated his suggestion that she install the black crystal, she agreed to consider it.

“Is
that
why you’ve stuffed and drunken me?” she demanded, sitting erect to feign indignation.

“Not entirely. I have given you sufficient food to restore your symbiont and enough drink to relax you.” He smiled away her defective grammar and any accusation of coercion. “I do not wish you to endure Passover’s mach storms. You might be ten levels underground, buffered by plascrete a meter thick, but the resonances cannot be”—he paused, averted his face, searching for the precise word—“escaped.” He turned back to her, and his eyes, dark and subtly pained, held hers, his petition heightened by the uncharacteristic difficulty in expressing his concern.

“Do you ever . . . escape?”

The delicate bond of perception between them lasted some time, and then, leaning across the table, he kissed her question away.

He escorted her back to her quarters, made certain she was comfortable in the bedroom, and suggested that in the morning she take her cutter down to be checked and stored, that if she was interested in weather history, she could review other phenomenal Passover storms in the met control the next day at eleven and see something of Storm Control tactics.

The next morning, she reflected during her shower and notably hearty breakfast on Lanzecki’s extraordinary attentions to her, sensual as well as Guild. She could see why Lanzecki, as Guild Master, would exploit her eagerness to get into the ranges and secure Keborgen’s priceless claim. She’d succeeded. Now, in an inexplicable reverse, Lanzecki wanted her off-planet. Well, she could decide this morning when she watched the weather history, whether that was the man or the Guild Master talking. She rather hoped it was the former, for she did like Lanzecki the man and admired the Guild Master more than any man she had so far encountered.

What had he meant when he said she was unpredicted? Had that been flattery? The Guild Master indulging a whimsy? Not
after
he had assisted her in getting out into the ranges; not
after
she had successfully cut black crystal? Especially, not after Lanzecki had very forcefully defined to her in the Sorting Room the difference between the man and the Guild Master.

She winced at the memory. She had deserved that reprimand. She could also accept his solicitousness for her health and well-being. He wanted more black crystal—if that was his motive. All right, Killashandra Ree, she told herself firmly, no section or paragraph of the Charter of the Heptite Guild requires the Master to explain himself to a member. Her ten years at Fuerte Music Center had taught Killashandra that no one ever does a favor without expecting a return. Lanzecki had also underscored self-preservation and self-interest with every object lesson that was presented.

She didn’t really want to leave Ballybran, though it was probably true that she could use the credit margin of an off-world assignment. She looked up the payment scale; the credit offered was substantial. Perhaps it would be better to take the assignment. But that would mean leaving Lanzecki, too. She stared grimly at her reflection in the mirror as she dressed. Departing for that reason might also be wise. Only she’d better mend her fences with Rimbol.

Grateful that she would not have the additional expense of replacing the cutter or facing the Fisher with that request, she brought the device up to Engineering and Training. As she entered the small outer office, she saw two familiar figures.

“I’m not going to be caught here again during Passover,” Borella was saying to the Singer Killashandra remembered from the shuttle.

“Doing your bit again on recruits, Borella?” the man asked, negligently shoving his cutter across the counter and ignoring the technician’s sour exclamation.

“Recruits?” Borella stared blankly.

“Remember, dear”—and the man’s voice rippled with mockery—“occasionally, you pass the time briefing the young hopefuls at Shankill station.”

“Of course, I remember,” Borella said irritably. “I can do better than that this time, Olin,” she went on smugly. “I cut greens in octave groups. Five of them. Enough for an Optherian organ. Small one, of course, but you know that
that
addiction will last a while.”

“I’m rather well off, too, as it happens.” Olin spoke over her last sentence.

Borella murmured something reassuring to him as she handed over her cutter to the technician, but showed a shade more concern for the device. Then she linked her arm through Olin’s. As they turned to leave, Killashandra nodded politely to Borella, but the woman, giving Killashandra’s cutter a hard stare, walked past with no more sign of recognition than tightening her clasp on Olin’s forearm.

“Of course, there are those unfortunate enough to have to stay here.” Her drawl insinuated that Killashandra would be of that number. “Have you seen Lanzecki lately, Olin?” she asked as they left the room.

For a moment, Killashandra was stunned by the double insult, though
how
Borella would have known where the Guild Master spent his time was unclear. She resisted the insane urge to demand satisfaction from Borella.

“Are you turning that cutter in or wearing it?” A sour voice broke through her resentment.

“Turning it in.” She handed the cutter to the Fisher carefully, wishing she didn’t have to encounter him as well.

“Killashandra Ree? Right?” He wasn’t looking at her but inspecting the cutter. “You can’t have used this much,” and he peered suspiciously at handle and blade casing. “Where’d you damage it?”

“I didn’t. I’m turning it in.”