Killashandra (12 page)

Killashandra mumbled something suitable. “How many positions are available to graduates?”

“That is not an issue, Guildmember,” Thyrol said with mild condescension. “There is no limit to the number of fully trained performers who present compositions for the Optherian organ—”

“But only one may play at a time—”

“There are forty-five organs throughout Optheria—”

“That many? Then why couldn’t one of those be substituted—”

“The instrument here at the Complex is the largest, most advanced and absolutely essential for the performance level required by the Summer Festival. Composers from all over the planet compete for the honor and their work has been especially written for the potential of the main instrument. To ask them to perform on a lesser organ defeats the purpose of the Festival.”

“I see,” Killashandra said although she didn’t. However, once she had been admitted through the series of barriers and security positions protecting the damaged
organ, she began to appreciate the distinction Thyrol had made.

He had taken her to the rocky basements of the Complex, and then to the impressive and unexpectedly grand Competition Amphitheater which utilized the natural stony bowl on the nether side of the Complex promontory. Some massive early earthfault and a lot of weathering had molded the mount’s flank into a perfect semicircle. The Optherians had improved the amphitheater with tiered ranks of individual seating units, facing the shelf on which the organ console stood. This was accessible only from the one entrance through which Thyrol now guided Killashandra. With a sincere and suitable awe, Killashandra looked about her, annoyed that she was gratifying Thyrol’s desire to impress a Guildmember even as she was unable to suppress that wonder. She cleared her throat, and the sound, small though it was, echoed faithfully back at her. “The acoustics are incredible,” she murmured and, as Thyrol smiled tolerantly, heard her words whispered back. She rolled her eyes and looked about her for an exit from the phenomenal stage.

Thyrol gestured to a portal carved in the solid rock on the far side of the organ console. From his belt pouch he extracted three small rods. With these and his thumb print, he opened the door, the sound reverberating across the empty space. Killashandra slipped in first. As familiar as she was with auditoria of all descriptions, something about this one unnerved her. Something about the seats reminded her of primitive diagnostic chairs which used physical restraints on their occupants, yet she knew that people would cross the Galaxy to attend the Festival.

Lights had come up at their entry and illuminated a large, low-ceilinged chamber. Taking up the floor space in front of the innocuous interlinked cabinets that made
up the electronic guts of the Optherian organ were the prominent sealed crates containing the white crystal. Overhead harnesses of color-coded cables formed a ceiling design before they disappeared through conduits to unknown destinations.

Thyrol led the way to the large rectangle containing the shattered remains of the crystal manual.

“How, in the name of all that’s holy, did he manage that?” Killashandra demanded after surveying the damage. Some of the smaller crystals had been reduced to thin splinters. In idle wonder she picked up a handful of the shards, letting them trickle through her fingers, ignoring Thyrol’s cry of alarm as he grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands back. The tiny cuts inflicted by the scalpel-sharp crystal briefly oozed droplets of blood then closed over while Thyrol watched in fascinated horror.

“As you can see, the merest caress of crystal.” She twisted her hands free of Thyrol’s unexpectedly strong grasp. “Now,” and she spoke more briskly, looking down at the mess in the bottom of the cabinet, “I’ll need some tools, some stout fellows, and stouter baskets to remove the debris.”

“An extractor?” Thyrol suggested.

“There isn’t an extractor built on Ballybran or anywhere else that wouldn’t be sliced to ribbons by crystal shards in suction. No, this has to be cleaned in a time honored fashion—by hand.”

“But you …”

Killashandra drew herself up. “As a Guildmember, I am not averse to performing
necessary
manual tasks.” She paused to let Thyrol appreciate the difference. She had done more than enough shard-scrapping on Ballybran to undertake it here on Optheria.

“It is only that security measures—”

“I would, of course, accept your assistance in the interests of security.”

Thyrol hastily adjourned to a communication console. “What exactly do you require, Guildmember?”

She gauged the volume of broken crystal in the cabinet. “Three strong men with impervometallic bins of approximately ten-kilo volume, triple-strength face masks, durogloves, fine-wire brushes, and the sort of small, disposable extractor used by archeologists. We have to be sure to glean every particle of crystal dust.”

Thyrol’s eyes bugged out a bit over the more bizarre items, but he repeated her requirements, and then turned up very stiff indeed when he was subjected to questions by the staff. “Of course, they have to be cleared by Security, but they are to be here immediately, properly geared to assist the Guildmember!” He broke off the connection and, his face blotched with displeasure, turned to Killashandra. “With so much at stake, Guildmember, you can appreciate our wish to protect you and the organ from further depredations. If something should happen to the replacement crystal …”

Killashandra shrugged. From what she had seen of Optherians, “once bitten, twice shy” described their philosophy. She ran her hand across the instrument nearest her, glancing around at the rest of the anonymous equipment. “This is a more complex device than I’d been led to believe.” She turned and presented a politely inquiring expression to Thyrol.

“Well, ah, that is …”

“Come now, Thyrol, I am scarcely connected with the subversives.”

“No, of course not.”

Killashandra diverted Thyrol’s attention from realizing that he had covertly admitted the existence of an underground organization by turning, once again, toward the front of the chamber and pointing at the access panel to the keyboard. “Now the actual keyboard is beyond that panel, so the right-hand box houses the
stops and voicing circuitry. And is that,” she pointed to the largest unit, “the CPU? The induction modulator and mixer must be in that left-hand cabinet.”

“You are knowledgeable about organ technology?” Thyrol’s expression assumed a wary blankness. For the second time since her arrival, Killashandra perceived empathic emanations from an Optherian: this time a strong sense of indefinable apprehension and alarm.

“Not as much about organs as I do about interface techniques, sensory simulators, and synthesizer modulators. Crystal singing requires a considerably wide range of experience with sophisticated electronic equipment, you know.”

He obviously didn’t or he wouldn’t have nodded so readily. Killashandra blessed her foresight in utilizing the sleep-teaching tapes she had copied from the
Athena
’s comprehensive data retrieval system. Her answer reassured Thyrol and the shadow of his fear slowly dissipated.

“Of course there is a double handshake between the program,” and he tapped the black case by him, “and the composition memory banks. Composition,” and he walked from one to the other, his hand lightly brushing the surfaces, “of course leads directly into the recall excitor stimulator, for that uses the memory symbology of the median individual member of any audience so that a composition is translated into terms which have meaning to the auditors. Naturally the subjective experience of a program for Optherians would differ greatly from the experience a nonhuman would have.”

“Of course,” Killashandra murmured encouragingly. “And the information from the crystal manual goes? …”

Assuming the pose of a pompous lecturer, Thyrol pointed to the various units in flow sequence. “Into the synapse carrier encoder and demodulator multiplexer,
both of which feed into the mixer for the sensory transducer terminal network.” Beaming with pride, he continued, “While the composition memory bank primarily programs the sensory synthesizer, the feedback loop controls the sensory attenuator for maximum effectiveness.”

“I see. Keyboard to CPU, direct interface with manual and synapse carrier encoder, plus the double hand-shakes.” Killashandra hid her shock—this emotion manipulator made the equipment at Fuerte look like preschool toys. Talk about a captive audience! Optherian concertgoers hadn’t a chance. The Optherian organ could produce a total emotional override with a conditional response unequaled anywhere. And a sufficient gauge of the audiences’ basic profile could be ascertained by matching ID plates and census data. Killashandra wondered that FSP permitted any of its citizens to visit the planet, much less to expose themselves to full-scale emotional overload at Festival time. “I can see why you’d need many soloists. They’d be emotionally drained after each performance.”

“We recognized that problem early on—the performer is shielded from the full effect of the organ in order to retain a degree of objectivity. And, of course, in rehearsal the transducer system is completely bypassed and the signals inserted into a systems analyser. Only the best compositions are played on the full organ system.”

“Naturally. Tell me, are the smaller organs amplified in this fashion?”

“The two-manual organs are. We have five of them, the rest are all single manual with relatively primitive synthesizer attentuator and excitor capability.”

“Remarkable. Truly remarkable.”

Thyrol was not blind to the implied compliment and looked about to smile as the outside door opened to
admit the work party. Behind them came three more men, their stance and costume identifying them as security. The work party stopped along the wall while the security trio tramped stolidly down to where Thyrol and Killashandra stood by the sensory feedback transponder.

“Elder Thyrol, Security Leader Blaz needs to know what disposition is to be made of the debris.” He saluted, ignoring Killashandra’s presence.

“Bury it deep. Preferably encapsulated in some permaform. Sea trench would be ideal,” Killashandra answered and was ignored by the security leader, who continued to look for an answer from Thyrol. Abruptly Killashandra’s captious temper erupted. She slammed her right hand into the leader’s shoulder, forcefully turning toward her. “Alternatively, insert it in your anal orifice,” she said, her voice reasonable and pleasant.

With a wave of astounded gasps sounding in her ear, she made her exit.

A
s Killashandra started across the stage to retrace her steps to the Complex, she decided that that was the last place she wanted to go in her state of mind. After all, Trag had chosen her because she could be more diplomatic than Borella. Not that Borella mightn’t have handled that security fardle-face with more tact, or effectiveness. However, the Optherians were stuck with her and she with them, and just then she didn’t wish to see one more sanctimonious, self-righteous, smug Optherian face.

She strode to the edge of the stage, peered over at the ten-foot drop to the ground, saw the heavy doors at each end of that level and made her decision. She lay at the edge, swung her legs down, gripping the overhang, and let go.

Her knees took the jar and she leaned against the wall for a moment just as she heard the men emerge from the organ room.

“She’ll have gone back to the Complex,” Thyrol said,
breathless with anger. He hurried across the stage, followed by the others. “Simeon, if you have offended the Guildmember, you may have jeopardized far more than you have protected …” The heavy door closed off the rest of his reprimand.

Somewhat mollified by Thyrol’s attitude and pleased with her timely evasion, Killashandra dusted off her hands and moved toward the clearly marked exit door at the outer edge of the amphitheater. Even the soft sound of the brushing was echoed by the fine acoustics. Grimacing, Killashandra stepped as cautiously and as silently as she could toward the exit. The heavy door had the usual push-bar on the inside, which she depressed, holding her breath lest it be locked from a control point. The bar swung easily out. She opened it only wide enough to permit her egress and it closed with a
thunk
behind her. Its exterior was without handle or knob for reentry and a flange protected it from being forced open—if such a circumstance ever arose on perfect Optheria.

Killashandra now found herself on a long ledge which led to one of the switchback paths she had seen yesterday, though this one was at the rear of the Complex. From that height she had a view of an unpretentious area of the City, to judge by the narrow streets and the small single-story buildings crowded together. Between it and the Complex heights lay a stretch of cultivated plots, each planted with bushy climbing plants and fenced off from its neighbors, and most of them neat. In several, people were busily watering and hoeing in the early morning sunlight. A rural scene served as a restorative to Killashandra’s exacerbated nerves.

She began her descent.

As she reached the valley floor, her nose was assailed by the unmistakable aroma of fermenting brew. Delighted, Killashandra followed the odor, squeezing past
an old shed, traversing the narrow path between allotments, nodding polite greetings to the gardeners who paused in their labors to regard her with astonishment. Well, she
was
wearing a costume which marked her as alien to Optheria, but surely these people had encountered aliens before. The aroma lured her on. If it tasted half as good as it smelled, it would be an improvement on the Bascum brew. Of course it could
be
Bascum, for breweries were often situated in suburbs where the fumes would not irritate the fastidious.