Killashandra (33 page)

Killashandra chuckled and pointed to the white crystal. “A secret weapon for you when I leave. Sing white crystal to whatever room you’re in and blast the monitors.” She reached for one of the larger pieces Lars had cleared away and hefted it. “We’ll just save some of this for you. I wonder if Research and Development know about this application of white.”

Suddenly Lars had his arms about her, his face buried in her hair, his lips against her neck. She could feel the tension in him and caressed him with gentle hands.

“Oh, Sunny, must you leave?”

She gave him a twisted, rueful smile, gentling the frown from his face with tender fingers. “Crystal calls me back, Lars Dahl. It’s not a summons I can ignore, and live!”

He kissed her hungrily and as she responded they both caught the slight sound, swiveling away from each other, as the door slid open.

“Ah, Elder Ampris,” Killashandra said, “your arrival is most opportune. Show him the bracket, Lars Dahl,” and when Ampris regarded this unusual offering with amazement, “run your fingers over the clamping edge … carefully … and feel how rough it is. We’re going to need some two hundred of these, for I’m not about to trust new crystal in old brackets. All I’ve removed so far have been scratched just like that one. Will you authorize the order—and designate it is urgent?”

Killashandra snapped her mask back over her face and picked up the brush. Then she swore.

“I could also use a handlight of some sort. Some of this wretched stuff is like powder.”

Elder Ampris peered in and she heard his intake of breath. She straightened, regarding him passively, seeing the stern accusation in his eyes.

“Let me demonstrate, Elder Ampris, the need for meticulous care.” She hummed, more loudly then before, and took great delight in its effect on the man. “Sorry about that.” She resumed work.

“I came to inquire, Guildmember, how soon the repairs would be completed.”

“Since the idiot who smashed the manual put his heart in the destruction, it’s going to take a lot more time than it did for me to remove one shattered crystal from the cruiser drive—if that’s the comparison you were using.” Killashandra sighed, and looked disconsolately at the crystal ruin. “It’s slow going because of the nature of crystal and because, as you perceived, every smidgeon has to be cleaned out. That’s all we’ve achieved today …”

Elder Ampris shot a sour glance at Lars. “More helpers?”

Killashandra gave a bark of laughter. “Just find me a vacuum capable of sucking up crystal dust and we’d clear this in an hour. Or, supply me with a brand new
case!” And she gave the one before her a dismissive slap with her hand. Crystal pinged, Lars and Ampris winced. “Gets to you, doesn’t it? Well, Elder Ampris, that’s where we stand. Now, if you’ll excuse me, the nitty gritty doesn’t get done by talking about it.” She picked up her brush but Ampris cleared his throat.

“A dinner and concert have been arranged for your enjoyment this evening,” he said.

“I appreciate the courtesy, Elder Ampris, but until I have finished this, I wouldn’t feel right about taking any time off for mere entertainment. If you’ll send us in some more food—”

“Guildmember,” Lars interrupted, “with all due respect, Elder Ampris is not … I mean, it is hardly his responsibility …”

“What are you trying to say, Captain?”

Ampris, his eyes glinting with the first glimpse of the humor she had seen from him since that long-ago reception, held up his hand, relieving Lars of the necessity of explanation.

“If the Guildmember is willing to forego pleasure to complete her task, I feel I may serve as messenger for her requirements.”

“Apparently everything I require has to be authorized by you anyway. Seems silly to waste time with all those intermediate stages.” Killashandra grinned at Ampris without a sign of remorse. “Would you not have a word with them out there, or Thyrol? Speed things up tremendously. Oh, and don’t forget, I need two hundred of those brackets. And the handlight. Lars, you go with him and get it, will you? It has to be small enough not to hamper sight, and I’d prefer a tight beam.”

They left and she returned to work. When Lars came back with several handbeams, his eyes were bubbling with humor.

“Your wishes are his commands, Oh mighty Guildmember,
Oh sweeper of the white crystal specks! Orders were issued to all the boys out there,” and he jerked his thumb at the closed door panel, “that anything you request is to be secured as fast as possible.”

“Hmmm. Bring one of those lights to bear on this corner, will you, Lars?” She flicked the brush and disclosed tiny granules that glittered in the light. “See? The fardling things are pernicious! I’ll get ’em, every last speck!”

When the sumptuous dinner was wheeled in to them some time later, she grumbled but stopped working.

“Is crystal singing some kind of disease?” Lars asked conversationally.

“You sail. Do you call a halt in the middle of a storm? Do you leave off fishing in the midst of a school to nap?”

“It’s not quite the same thing—”

“It is to me, Lars. Be of good cheer. The bracketing will be relatively easy and you can help me do that.”

Despite her protests, Lars carried her out of the organ loft just before midnight. When they reached her suite, she insisted that they had better have a good soak, to be sure none of the crystal dust had penetrated their clothing. In the bath, he had to hold her head above water, for she kept falling asleep.

It took nearly four days to ensure that no speck of crystal dust remained in the case. By the time they arrived each morning, new monitor buds had been installed. So the first thing that Killashandra did on entering the organ loft was to hum a happy tune, charging the white crystal shards to do their duty and blast the fragile sensors.

On the third day, the new brackets were delivered and Killashandra set Lars Dahl to checking each one under a microscope. Fourteen were rejected for minor flaws. After the visit of Elder Ampris, they had no visitors.
Thyrol would conduct them every morning to the loft, unlocking it and inquiring after their needs. Excellent meals were delivered at the appropriate hours. Assured of uninterrupted privacy, with easily disabled monitors, Lars had the freedom to undertake a very patient examination of the room, searching for the location of the subliminal equipment.

On the fourth morning, as Thyrol led them across the stage, Killashandra noted a curious discrepancy. The loft room did not extend the entire length of the stage behind the organ console. She silently counted her paces to the door. When Thyrol had closed the panel and Lars had activated the jammer, she paced out the width of the room.

“In—ter—est—ing,” she said, her nose against the far wall. “This room is only half the length of the stage, Lars. Does that suggest anything to you?”

“It does, but there is no corresponding door on the other side of the console!” He joined her in her scrutiny of the blameless wall. “The subliminals have to be linked to the main frame data bases. I wonder …”

She followed his inspection of the cables that festooned the ceiling, pausing where they ran alongside the wall.

“Just a little minute,” he said, his eyes wide with discovery, and he spun one of the impervo tubs to a position just under the cables.

He had to crane his neck, half stooped against the ceiling, but he gave a low and triumphant whistle. When he jumped down, he gathered Killashandra in his arms and whirled her about, crowing with exultation.

“The wall drops—how I don’t know, but there is just the slightest gap at the top, where no one would think to look for it. And three very heavy cables go through the wall.”

Lars replaced the tub before he began to inspect the corner joint. Once again he gave an exultant
yip
.

“The whole wall must move, Killa—but how?”

“That large a mass sinking into the floor might be a touch noisy.”

“If we knew the mechanism …” He felt along the corner, then the floor, pressing and tapping.

“That’s far too obvious, Lars. Stupid they are but never obvious. Try for an extrusion on one of the units, underneath ’em, inside …” She ran searching fingers under the one nearest her, finding nothing but a rough edge on one corner which produced a gouged finger. “
Ach
, I haven’t the patience for this sort of nonsense right now. You go ahead. I’ll finish this last bit of cleaning.”

By the time their lunch was brought in, Lars had found nothing more. The units that could be opened had been opened with no result. Lars stewed and fussed all through the meal at his inability to resolve the problem.

“What sort of form do the security measures generally take on Optheria? Bureaucracies tend to find a reliable mechanism and stick with it,” Killashandra suggested, with only half her attention on that part of the problem since she was so close to clearing the manual case for the next task.

“I can find out. Would you mind being left alone this evening?” He grinned at her, stroking her arm gently. “You’d be a mite conspicuous where I want to go.”

“And where would that be?” she asked with an arch glance of mock disgust.

“I’ve got to acquire a few more clothes,” and he twitched the fabric of his shirt, not as gaudy as that of most island designs but certainly noticeable amid the drab garb of the city dwellers. “Talk to a few people. Lucky for us, it’s nearing the time of year when the subliminals wear off and normal student appetites revive.
I might be late, Killa,”—he made a grimace of regret—“We don’t have as much time together …”

She kissed the pulse in his throat. “Whenever you return then. That is, of course,” and she had to add a light touch to relieve the tension in her throat, “if the guards pass you in.”

A
nd?” Killashandra prompted Lars the next morning as they breakfasted. Despite a valiant effort to stay awake, she had been asleep when he returned and he was showering when she was awakened by the distant chimes.

“I got clothing, all right enough,” Lars admitted with a frustrated sigh. “The Elders’ search and seizure for you was far more comprehensive than our visitors,” and despite the jammer he was taking no chances, “had led us to believe. Or perhaps knew. Anyone—anyone who has been booked even for a pedestrian offense—was drawn. Half a dozen students were sent on to rehab without benefit of Inquiry.”

“Olver?”

Lars ran his fingers through his hair, scratching his head vigorously as if to erase his despondency. “How he escaped I don’t know and neither, I gather, does he. We didn’t exchange more than a few signs.” Lars propelled
himself from his chair, pacing, head down. “It could very well be that the Elders have marked him and are playing a waiting game.”

“Are Nahia and Hauness safe?”

Lars gave her a quick and grateful smile for that concern. “They were holding clinics in Ironwood,” he waved his hand to the north, “at the time of your disappearance. The City, Gartertown, and the Port took the brunt of search and seizure. And Security then used your disappearance as an excuse to take known dissidents in protective custody.”

“How many are?”

“In protective custody? My dear Guildmember, such figures are never made public.”

“An informed guess? Suicide is one form of social protest, the size of the p.c. population another one.”

Lars shook his head. “Hauness might be able to find out,” and Lars resumed his head shaking, “but I wouldn’t risk getting in touch with him right now.”

Killashandra stared at Lars Dahl for a long moment, a sinking sensation that had nothing to do with hunger cramping her guts.

“And I have made you as vulnerable as any of those already in p.c., haven’t I?”

Lars shrugged and grinned. “If you hadn’t named me your rescuer, I’d be tucked away in a rehab cubicle right now spinning out my brains.”

“After I’ve gone?”

Lars shrugged again, then gave her an impudent wink. “All I need is a half-day’s start on ’em. And once I’ve made the islands, there isn’t an S & S team that can find me if I don’t wish to be found.”

He sounded so confident that, for a moment, Killashandra almost believed him. As if he sensed her doubt, he leaned over her in the chair, his eyes more brilliantly
blue than ever, his lips upturned in a provocative half smile.

“Beloved Sunny, if it wouldn’t sound mawkish, I’d say that meeting you has been the high point of my life so far. And confounding Elders Torkes and Ampris are adventures to lighten my darkest hour—”

“Which might yet be in a rehab booth!”

“I know the risk, and it’s been worth it, Killa!” He kissed her then, a light brief touch of his lips to hers but it set her blood ringing as quickly as crystal.

“Speaking of Elders,” she began in an attempt to shake off her anxiety, “we begin to bracket crystal today.” She rose from the chair with a determined effort, then saw his expression. “All right—I grant you, learning to bracket and tune crystal won’t advance you in the Elders’ files, but those are useful skills anywhere else in the FSP.”

Lars laughed. “Had we but worlds enough and time—”

Killashandra let out a great guffaw. “Malaprop!” But outrageous humor made a better start to a tricky day than gloom.