Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line (2 page)

“Weren’t in it much, not with only two to crew her through some nasty storms,” Killa added with mock contrition. “Where’s Trag?”

“I’m Bollam.” He gave the odd shrug of one shoulder and tilt of his head that told them that Trag was no longer alive. “You know your way?”

“Intimately,” Killashandra snapped over her shoulder as she strode angrily around him and toward the door to Lanzecki’s sanctum. She didn’t like Trag being dead. He had taught her to retune crystal during her apprenticeship, and she vaguely remembered other remote things about him, mainly good. Bollam didn’t look like the sort of personality who could manage the duties that Trag had so effortlessly—and unemotionally—executed. If she were Lanzecki, she wouldn’t trust that dork-looking weed as a partner in the Ranges. Fardles, she didn’t have half that many scars on her arms, and she’d been singing crystal for … for a long time!

Slapping the door plate with an angry hand, she pushed through as soon as its identifying mechanism released the lock. She strode across to where Lanzecki was leaning over a worktop.

“You do have a comunit aboard that boat of yours,” he began before she could take the initiative.

“Ship,” Lars automatically corrected Lanzecki.

“When we turn it on,” Killashandra said simultaneously. “What’s so earth-shattering?”

Lanzecki tossed the stylus he had been using to the worktop and, straightening, gave the pair a long look. Killa felt something twist inside her. Lanzecki’s face looked drawn and—aged. Had Trag’s death been that recent?

“In the 478-S-2937 system in the Libran area of space, they’ve found what they think might be a new version of crystal, opalescent, but purported to be considerably more complex than Terran opals or Vegan firestones, either clear or opaque.”

He clicked on the viewing screen, fast-forwarding it so that the exploration ship zoomed in speedy orbit, landed, and early-evaluation processes went at an everincreasing kaleidoscopic rate.

“Ah! Here!” And Lanzecki pressed for normal speed. “Planet’s a shell with an immense cavern system—geologists suggest that the planet cooled too fast.”

“No oceans?” Lars asked.

Lanzecki shook his head, and Killa grinned, a trifle sourly, for that was always Lars’s first question about a new planet: Were there seas to sail?

“Underground deposits of ice neither drinkable nor,” the Guild Master added with a rare display of broad humor, “sailable.”

“Damn!”

“Ah!” Killa said, as the vid angled up and a coruscation of what appeared to be liquid was reflected back. The angle altered, and Killa and Lars became aware that the liquidity was actually the reflection of what appeared to be a band of Lanzecki’s medium blue opalescent stone.

Abruptly Lanzecki fast-forwarded to another extrusion, this time a deeper blue in a wider band that was almost a complete rib, vaulting across the ceiling from one side of the cavern to the other, nearly to the floor on both sides, seemingly spread from the “pool” in the center of the roof. Curiously, the color seemed to flow as if it were forcing itself downward on both ends, striving to reach the base.

“This is taken with only existing light,” Lanzecki
said, his tone laced with amused interest. “The planet has a very slow rotation, taking nearly forty standard hours to complete one diurnal revolution. This was taped in dawn light. Full noon is blazing.”

Lars was more vocal in his admiration. “All this one stone, or a vein?” he asked, sounding awed.

“Well,
that
is another matter no one has been able to ascertain,” Lanzecki said dryly.

“Oh?” Killa wasn’t sure she liked the possibilities becoming apparent in the situation.

“Yes, these tapes are several years old. Every member of the exploration team died within four months of landing on Opal.”

“Opal?” Killashandra asked, staving off the gorier details she was sure Lanzecki would give them.

He shrugged, his lips twitching briefly. “The team named it.”

“Not knowing it would be their memorial?” Lars commented wryly.

“Happens.”

“How did they die?” Lars asked, hitching one leg over the corner of the worktop and settling himself there.

“Not nicely. When the deadman alarm went off, broadcasting a contamination code, the Trundomoux who investigated took every precaution. They recovered the tape cassette in the airlock along with the ship’s log and a small chunk of
unflexing
material which turned out to be part of that coruscating stuff. There were notes from the geologist and the doctor of the stricken ship in the log entries. They concurred in the opinion that they had acquired a lethal dose of something on Opal, and it could well have been from contact with the stone. The log said that to get this sample, they had had to laser out the stone around it, as they couldn’t detach it in any other way.” Lanzecki paused for effect. “The survey
guys have identified cesium, gallium, rubidium, and lesser quantities of iron and silicon in the sample. There are also several radioactive isotopes, indicating that at some point the sample included a radioactive element, but we found no trace of one to identify. Odd thing was that the sample did not have the coruscating look of the parent body. Trag thought it had died, being excised from the main body.”

“Trag went?”

Lanzecki looked away from them for a long moment before he answered. Then he made eye contact first with Killashandra, then with Lars.

“The Ballybran symbiont will heal our bodies and reduce degeneration to a very slow crawl, but eventually it, too, loses its resilience. Trag has been on the Guild Roll a long, long time. He knew his symbiont protection was waning. When the Guild was asked to send a representative on the premise that the Ballybran symbiont might protect a Heptite member, Trag volunteered. Presnol put him through exhaustive tests and discovered that the symbiont was still active. Trag insisted that he had protection enough to be safe.”

There were many in the Guild who called Lanzecki “the Stone-face.” Even Killashandra had once made the mistake of thinking him emotionless, but later events had corrected that misjudgment. The stony look now was masking at least regret, if not something deeper. Lanzecki had depended on Trag for more than just partnership when he had to cut crystal.

“He spent unshielded time with the stone and suffered no ill effects.”

“Then what killed him?” Killashandra demanded.

Lanzecki gave a snort. “Some damned fool respiratory ailment he caught on the voyage back.” A twist of his right shoulder indicated his dislike of such an ignoble
ending. “Presnol did consider the possibility that contact with the stone had further reduced his symbiont protection, and tissue examination proved that Trag certainly hadn’t contracted the same, or a similar, disease to that which affected the geological ship’s personnel.” Lanzecki paused again. “In his report Trag was confident that the Ballybran symbiont would protect crystal singers, and that further investigations should be carried out by the Heptite Guild. He reported a
resonance
from the stone, unlike anything he ever encountered in the Ranges—unlike but similar.”

Killashandra folded her arms across her chest, ignoring the querying expression on Lars’s face. “And you want us to explore the possibilities?” she finally asked.

“Yes.”

Lars caught her gaze, blinking his left eye in their private code of interest. Killa made Lanzecki wait for their answer.

“How much?”

Lanzecki gave her a shark’s grin. “We have quoted them a … substantial fee for the services of a Heptite Guild team.”

“Ooooh, then the Powers that Be are really interested,” she said. When Lanzecki nodded, she went on, “And you have a price in mind—for us, as well as the Guild?”

“I am able to offer you fifty thousand credits. You’d be off-planet during Passover—and you should have more than enough time to complete the investigation before the frenzy overtakes you.”

Killashandra dismissed that aspect as she rapidly considered the monetary enticement and decided that the Guild must have asked for twice or three times that amount.

“We wouldn’t take less than ninety thousand for that
sort of hazardous work.” She flicked a quick glance at Lars. Even the fifty thou would take them anywhere in explored space for as long as they could stand being away from Ballybran.

Lanzecki inclined his head briefly, but the slight upturn of his lips told Killa that he had expected her to haggle. “Sixty. The Guild will have expenses …”

“You should have asked for those above and beyond the danger money,” Killashandra said with a snort of contempt. “Eighty-five.”

“We might have to keep you in isolation on your return from Opal …”

“Why else have I been paying dues all these years? And don’t you trust Trag’s evaluation?”

“As I always trusted him. He was, however, only in the chamber with the stone for a relatively short period.”

“How long?” Lars asked.

“Three weeks.”

“And you want us to believe that it didn’t affect the symbiont?”

“Presnol says not. A simple bronchial infection killed him. Those on the exploration ship—examined by remote probe—died of a rampant lymphatic leukemia which no medication available to any nonaltered humans could combat. There were no indications of lymphatic failure or alteration in Trag.”

“Three weeks might not have been long enough for the problem to develop.”

Lanzecki shook his head. “Not according to the data in the log of the medic on board the exploration ship. Initial symptoms of fatigue, headache,
et cetera
, appeared in the second week after contact.”

Killashandra kept staring at Lanzecki. After the Trundomoux black-crystal installation—a traumatic
memory she hadn’t been able to eradicate—and some other little special assignments, the memories of which had been reduced over the years to feelings of annoyance rather than specific complaints, Killashandra had an innate distrust of any Lanzecki assignments.

“Eighty buys our time and effort,” she told him with terse finality.

“
Plus
 …” Lars held up his hand, entering the bidding for the first time. “A half percent of Guild profits arising from viable merchandising of this as a product.”

“What!”
Lanzecki’s blast of surprise startled Lars off his perch.

Killashandra threw her head back in a burst of laughter as he pulled himself back up onto the worktop. “Boy, you’re learning!”

“Well, I don’t see why not,” Lars told her, but he was watching Lanzecki’s face. “If we’re risking our asses for the Guild, we should see some of the profits!”

“It may be nothing more than a pretty stone!” Lanzecki bit out the words.

“Then there’d be no royalty to be paid.”

“It could be sentient,” Killashandra put in.

“Whose side are you on?” Lars demanded.

But Lanzecki grinned.

“Done!” And before either crystal singer could protest, he caught Killashandra’s hand and slapped it down on the palm pad, effectively registering her agreement. Then he extended the unit to Lars Dahl, who grinned broadly and made a show of wriggling his fingers before placing them down on the pad.

“We could have held out for more,” Killashandra said with some disgust.

Lars parted his lips in a broad grin. Bargaining was usually her province, and she was very good at it. He was rather pleased with his initiative in adding the percentage:
not too much for Lanzecki to reject out of hand, but if the rock proved useful, they could easily never have to cut crystal unless they needed to renew the symbiont. Still, eighty thousand credits and a royalty was enough to salve pride and greed.

“So, if unaltered humans can’t land on this planet, how do we?” Killashandra asked.

“Brain ship’s been allocated.”

“Our old friends Samel and Chadria?” Lars asked.

The names titillated Killashandra’s memory but produced no further recall.

Lanzecki gave Lars a patient stare. “Not them.”

Killashandra winced, for his attitude plainly indicated that that pair were no longer alive. She wondered, but only briefly, how long ago their demise had occurred. Brain ships had life expectancies of several hundred years. Could she have been cutting crystal for
that
long?

“They had an awkward accident,” Lanzecki amended, and Killashandra relaxed. “I’ll inform the Agency that you’ve taken the contract.”

“So there’ve been no tests or assays or anything completed on this stone? Even by Trag?” Lars asked. “Discounting its effect on humans.”

“Trag felt it was sentient.”

“Trag did?” Killashandra was astounded. “Then it is.”

“And you treat that as a possibility only, Killashandra Ree,” Lanzecki said, sternly waggling a blunt finger at her.

“You bet!” She began to feel better about the assignment. If blunt ol’ thick-skinned conservative Trag had felt something, she rather supposed that she and Lars would have much better luck. “A silicon sentience has been postulated.”

“Will it say it’s sorry it killed the team?” Lars asked sarcastically, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Does crystal?” Killashandra responded with a snort.

“At least crystal sings” was Lars’s soft rejoinder.

To Lars, Lanzecki passed a flimzie and a thin tape cassette. “That’s all we have on the silicon, and the relevant log entries.”

“So when do we go?”

“Your transport, the BB-1066—” He held up his hand when Killashandra started to interrupt him. “The Brendan/Boira. Boira’s on sick leave, so Brendan’s willing to undertake the journey.”

“Truly a B-and-B ship,” Lars said dryly.

“And I suppose you expect us to depart immediately?” Killashandra asked irascibly.

Lanzecki nodded briefly. “Brendan’s been
patiently
waiting your return.”

“We just got in,” Killashandra protested.

“From a holiday,” Lanzecki pointed out.

“Holiday?” Noting Lars Dahl stiffen on his corner of the worktop, she grinned impudently. “Well, from one point of view, but I’d like time to get the salt off my skin and a bit of crystal out of my blood.”

“A tub—a double one”—Lanzecki’s grin was malicious—“and sufficient radiant fluid are aboard the 1066. With eighty thou to your credit, you can surely see your way clear to a precipitous departure. Everyone you might know—bar Presnol—is out in the Ranges.”