Crystal Universe - [Crystal Singer 03] - Crystal Line (33 page)

“Bloody hell, it swallowed it!” Killa announced, unable to perceive any trace of the green. “Of all the ungrateful …”

“Oh, there it is,” Klera went on, pointing as the green slowly came into view again, positioned in the exact center of the core, with two-thirds of its length visible.

“We are monitoring increased activity in Three” was the report from the base.

“No quarrel with that,” Killa said, delighted with the effect. And yes, she thought, Boira’s theory about pattern talk was an avenue that ought to be explored. She found herself tracking a brilliant display of green, blue, and yellow herringbones that flashed from the core to the floor and disappeared.

“Crystal Singer …” Sothi had her by both hands, gripping tightly. “You were swaying …”

Killa accepted his help down from the ladder. He pressed his helmet against hers. “Don’t watch the patterns, C.S. You lose time that way,” he murmured.

Her lapse had gone unnoticed, save by Sothi, for the other observers were helmet to helmet in deep consultations. Killa wondered how much time she had lost.

“Does it happen often, Sothi?” she asked.

“Often enough to need to be cautious.”

“Which cave is next?” she asked him. In that moment of distraction, she had forgotten.

“Two, which is only a step away,” he answered, and suddenly she remembered the entire sequence and where each crystal was supposed to go. Time was not the only thing you lost following Junk patterns, she thought.

Then, when Sothi would have signaled to Rudney that they were leaving Three, she caught his hand and waggled her finger at him. “C’mon,” she said, touching her helmet to his. “We can get this all done in half the time if we leave these science types to talk.”

Sothi seemed hesitant, but his companion whose suit bore the name “Asramantal,” pulled him toward the entrance.

Killashandra had done four, with Sothi or Asra neatly catching the discarded slivers, before Rudney and the observers caught up. She ignored Rudney’s harangue and continued on her scheduled round. If she kept herself busy, watching her feet on the cindery paths, even doing a bit of pattern watching, with Sothi or Asramantal to pull her out if she dallied too long, she didn’t have to think about installing the black in Big Hungry. As they had trudged from one cave to the next, she had confided some of her anxiety to Brendan and Boira.

“Can I count on you two for a bit of help?” she asked.

“What kind?” Boira asked.

“I might have trouble with Big Hungry …”

“What sort of trouble?”

“I’m not sure, really. Ah, well, it’s mainly that I hate installing blacks anywhere for any reason,” she said, trying not to infuse her voice with the anxiety that she could feel building into full-blown stress. Muhlah! This black wasn’t being used—not in the normal sense—as a comcrystal. Maybe she was borrowing trouble.

“Feedback?” Brendan asked.

“Like you never felt before,” she said.

“What can we do?”

“Stay tuned—and talk me out of the backlash.”

“What form does that take?”

“It sings back through me.”

“Gives you quite a jolt, huh?”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“How do we help?” Boira asked.

“Could you suit up, Boira, and come down to Fifteen for the finale?”

“Sure. Be with you in two strokes of a hand pump. Only what do I do if you do freak out?”

“Get me back to Bren as fast as possible! I think I’ll pull out on my own as long as there’s distance between
me and the black. And, by the way, Boira, your theory about patterns is not so far-fetched. The Junk radiates them in ever-changing displays.”

“Hmm. Int—” Boira’s voice was cut off.

“Boira?”

“She’s in her suit and has not turned on the com,” Brendan said in the patient tone of someone who was accustomed to such bungles.

With her confidence shored up by Boira’s promise to be present, Killa completed the other installations. On her way to Big Hungry, she took a swallow of the suit’s emergency ration—and immediately wished she hadn’t. Somehow she had been expecting something considerably more palatable.

“Yecht!” she muttered.

“What’s the matter?” Brendan asked.

“The suit’s food!”

“Oh? So you do appreciate the lengths to which I went for you the last time?”

“If that’s what I thought I was getting, yes.” And the memory of more delectable flavors was indeed vivid in her mind.

She had no time for a pleasant review, for she had reached the cave entrance. Boira stood out from the others lining the big cavern: her suit was not only a vivid citron yellow but of a different design. She lifted her gloved hand in a salute to Killashandra. That alerted the other suited figures. Killa guessed that every member of Rudney’s team who could be spared from the laboratory was present. There was a jumble of comments that told her there had been a draw to see who got to attend. Killa also heard excited reports from the few technicians still manning the instrumentation. Activity in the Junks had speeded up, pushing the monitors to designer limits to process the incoming data.

“Watch out, you guys and gals,” Killashandra said as Sothi and Asra positioned the ladder under the core. “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

“What precisely do you mean by that remark, Crystal Singer?” Rudney demanded, his apprehension reflected in his voice as well as the sudden stiffening of his suited figure.

Killa had been talking to bolster her own confidence and wished Rudney didn’t require so many explanations of casual comments. She sighed as she clamped the forceps firmly about the black. If she could avoid touching it at all, its effect on her would be reduced. She had gotten the hang of jamming crystal into cores now, and she didn’t plan to bungle this final, and most crucial, insertion.

“Watch and observe, Dr. Saplinson-Trill.” She extended her arm, noting that Sothi and Asra stood ready to catch the old splinter. Oh, Muhlah! she swore silently as a new thought struck her. This wasn’t the last she had to install. There were all the old slivers to be put into the new Junks.

“Observe what?”

“Wait and see,” she said. Taking a deep breath, she touched the black to the Junk, quiveringly ready to drop forceps and all at any sign that the black was going to react.

The black shaft was ingested so swiftly that her reflexes had no time to respond. Forceps, crystal, and her gloved hand were all pulled into the sudden maelstrom of frenzied, turbulent patterns that cascaded down the Junk—and flowed through Killashandra with such devastating force that she felt her death was imminent! Her whole life flashed across her mind, pushing her down into black oblivion.

K
illashandra Ree was vastly surprised to waken once more to the living world.

“She’s back,” a low voice murmured, and a cool hand rested lightly on her forehead. “Hey, you made it!” The cheery tone rich with relief was Boira’s.

“I’m not so sure of that,” Killa replied, spacing her words carefully. Her head felt several sizes too large, and while it didn’t ache, it might just as well have. A brightness pressed unmercifully against her eyelids, and she squeezed them tighter. “Got any analgesics?”

“What? A crystal singer needing medication?”

“There’s always a first time. I certainly wouldn’t blame my symbiont for decamping after that. Whatever it was.”

“There’s considerable debate on that score back at the base,” Brendan said, his whisper rippling with mirth. Or maybe her hearing was impaired.

“Are you whispering for my benefit?” she asked.

“Yes,” Boira said in a more normal tone. “You kept complaining about noise, and bright lights. Not that I blame you for that. Big Hungry Junk nearly turned nova when you fed it the black. D’you remember anything?”

“I remember dying.”

“You didn’t,” Boira said. “First thing I did was check your suit readings and, mind you, you were rigid …”

“I died,” Killashandra insisted.

“Not according to your suit readings, friend, and when I got you back here—”

“Against heavy opposition,” Brendan added. “You’d have been real proud of Boira. She mowed ’em down.”

“Sothi and Asra helped,” Boira went on graciously. “What on earth can I give you that might help?” Killa heard a rattling that rumbled like an avalanche inside her head.

“Try one of the homeopathics, Boira,” Brendan suggested. “I think that wouldn’t interfere with the symbiont.”

“Why isn’t it working when I need it?” Killa moaned. “How much light do you have on out there?” The brilliance was instantly dimmed. “Thanks, Bren.”

“Ah, this says it’s a specific for trauma, injury, and systemic malfunction. See, Bren? What d’you think?”

“Try it,” Killashandra said urgently.

The spray was cool against her skin, and she could actually feel the preparation diffusing—diffusing and easing the intolerable and unidentifiable malaise that gripped her.

“Oh, Muhlah! It’s working …” Killa sighed with infinite relief, feeling taut muscles and stressed nerves beginning to relax. The noise level began to drop, and the light beating against her eyelids diminished to a comfortable level.

“I’m thirsty,” she said then, suddenly aware of her parched throat and mouth. She didn’t quite have the courage to open her eyes.

Very gently, Boira laid an arm under her and raised her head enough to make it easy to drink from the beaker pressed against her lips.

“It’s full of electrolytes and the other stuff a convalescent needs,” Boira said.

She couldn’t taste a definite flavor, but the moisture was very welcome. It, too, was traceable all the way down her gullet and into her stomach. She could feel her body absorbing the wetness. Was her bloody symbiont fast asleep, zapped out of existence, or working overtime? She had been injured often enough to know that the symbiont’s work was generally too subtle to be noticeable. What had Big Hungry done to her?

“Our diagnostic unit says you’re in perfect physical condition,” Boira said, “in case you’re worried.”

“I wish I could agree.” Killa forced her lids open to a slit and, finding that this was not painful, opened them further. She was in her cabin on the 1066, and the digital dateline over the door informed her that she had lost two full days. “So, tell me what happened?” she bravely asked Boira, who was sitting beside her bunk, an open medical chest on a stand next to her.

“First you went rigid …”

“I remember that very clearly.” And Killa did, with a clarity that astounded her. In the moment she had anticipated her death, every bone had seemed to harden; every artery, vein, and capillary had solidified. Color had coruscated through her eyes into every cell of her body, rippling in an inexorable tide, lapping back and plunging forward again, as if she were being swirled in some liquid element … and all the while her life had been fast-forwarding through her mind.

“I got to you before Rudney did, and your two cronies helped me get you off the ladder. Even the suit material felt petrified but, as I said, your life signs registered normal.”

“Normal was not what happened to me.”

“Agreed, but that’s what the monitors told
me.
And I was relieved. Meanwhile, all hell had broken loose. I mean, the Junk was indescribable. Brendan’ll show you his recordings …”

“Later,” Killa suggested weakly. The thought of seeing all that color again was more than she could handle.

“Of course, whenever you wish,” Brendan said gently. “Talk about scientific detachment and impartial observation …” He chortled maliciously. “Rudney and his crew were hysterical. Everyone tried to get through the exit at the same time. ’S a wonder suits weren’t ripped in the press.”

“I don’t blame them for being scared,” Killa said charitably.

“They weren’t scared,” Brendan replied in a scathing tone. “They just wanted to get back to the base to see what the instruments were logging. Rudney kept trying to shut ’em up so he could hear the broadcasts.”

“Sothi and Asra were marvelous, by the way,” Boira went on. “They helped me get you out of the cave, and then you sort of folded, like an empty sheet. Thought we’d nearly lost you, but Bren was monitoring and kept telling us to hurry you to him. Sothi worried that perhaps we were wrong to remove you from Big Junk …”

“Big Junk had just done all it could to me and for me,” Killa murmured, though she still had no idea of the extent of the alteration. She merely knew there had
been
one.

“D’you know what it’s done?” Boira asked tentatively. “Nothing new registers?”

“Sensory overload doesn’t always produce measurable output,” Brendan said.

“Is that your diagnosis, Bren?” Killa asked.

“Empiric only, Killa, since it’s obvious by your comments and the need for supplemental medication that what you’re experiencing is not corroborated by the med monitors.”

“Well, maybe it’s nothing more than a good night’s sleep won’t set right in next to no time, huh?” Killa kept her tone facetious because she could not discuss, even with such staunch friends as Boira and Brendan, what seemed to have happened to her during that sensory overload. “I do feel as if I’d been turned inside out, back to front, and then wrung dry …”