Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  "Leaving no turn unstoned," Bren had quipped.

  According to the log, the now-deceased team had also discovered some very interesting slag on one of the outer satellites of Libran 2937, samples of which were still being analyzed—and their possible uses extrapolated from the all too small supply.

  "Where did the geological survey land, Bren?" Lars asked.

  "Their landing of record," Bren began, "is . . . right . . . below us." He magnified the image of his main screen, and the iridescent nauseous green paint that exploration teams used to mark their sites became clearly visible.

  Lars and Killashandra turned to examine the close-up of the site, which was being displayed on one of the smaller bridge screens.

  "Shall we?" the ship asked in a wry tone.

  "Ach! Why not?" Lars said.

  "We've time to eat," Killa said, feeling hunger pangs though she was certain they had eaten not too long before.

  "Is it that time?" Lars asked with a startled expression. "We've done nothing but eat since we came aboard."

  "They used to term it singing for your supper," Brendan added. His chuckle ended abruptly. "Oh, I see. You mean, your home planet's going through one of its Passover periods?"

  "It was due to," Killa said. "It must have started. That's the only time we can't stop eating."

  "Hmmm. Well, we've plenty aboard," Brendan replied soothingly.

  Killashandra grimaced. "But we're going to have to suit up to move around down there, and suit food's not very satisfying."

  Lars considered this aspect of the unusual hunger of their symbionts at Passover time: an urge which would overtake their bodies no matter how far they were from Ballybran, since it was generated by the symbiont, ever in phase with its native planet. "We could work in shifts, one of us eat while the other explores."

  "No! Absolutely not," Brendan vetoed firmly. "As a team always. How long do you last between snacks?"

  Killa laughed. "Snack? You've never seen a singer eat!"

  "Well, tell me how much and I can deliver it to the lock so you don't have to unsuit completely to assuage your need."

  Killa brightened. "That's a thought."

  "We'll certainly give it a try," Lars said with a grin. "Now, just let's see if we can plan our excursions around our appetites." He accessed the log files of the fateful geology ship.

  "How about I land you near the biggest of the vaults? This one!" Bren suggested, calling up the most remarkable of the liquidlike ribs. "That's not the landing of record, but it's certainly the most interesting site they found. Of course, I'm far more flexible than the Toronto was. We can pit hop as much as we need—while you're chowing down a good feed."

  "Then there's the problem of the Sleep," Killa said, making a sour face.

  "Oh?" Brendan prompted.

  "Yes. Having stuffed ourselves like hibernators, we then sleep for the duration of the actual Passover."

  "Or rather, our symbionts force us to sleep during the combined transit of the three moons," Lars explained.

  "How long?"

  Lars shrugged. "A week. That's why we stock up so heavily."

  "For a week's sleep?"

  Lars shrugged, then grinned at Brendan's column. "Not my choice."

  "Then you eat again?" Brendan asked solicitously.

  "Just before we fall asleep, even the sight of food makes us nauseous. That's generally how we know we'd best get into a comfortable position," Lars explained.

  "Most unusual," Brendan said mildly, "though I've heard and encountered weirder ones."

  "You're most reassuring," Killashandra said dryly.

  "I try to be. You'd best belt in," he added. The main screen was showing their precipitous approach to the pock-marked moon. Seeing that, the two singers hastened to obey.

  Brendan was an excellent pilot—as he was the ship, to all intents and purposes. As he neatly deposited them on the soi-disant surface of Opal, Lars and Killa applauded in the traditional manner. Then they concentrated on eating the enormous meal the ship served them—items that Brendan knew they particularly liked and in quantities that should have daunted a normal appetite.

  "You really do stow it away, don't you?"

  Killa and Lars were too busy stuffing themselves to give any reply other than a distracted "Hmmm . . ."

  At last they were replete; and, groaning a bit, they squeezed into their vacuum suits. Killashandra found herself wishing, if only for a moment, that "space suits" had not evolved to be quite so lean and efficient. But theses suits were perfect for non-atmospheric explorations. The close-fitting shell provided the wearer with a nearly impervious second skin. Fine controls for digital manipulations were available; sanitary arrangements were as unobtrusive as possible. The helmet afforded complete head mobility and visibility; the tubes for eating and drinking were housed at the neck rim. The oxygen unit fitted snugly across the shoulder blades and down to the end of the spine, which it also served to protect. Helmet, digital, and arm lights illuminated a wide area around the wearer. Versatile tools attached to special rigs on the belt and stowed in thigh and leg pouches gave them additional external resources.

  "I've stocked your suit packs with a rather tasty high protein, followed by a sweet confection that might just relieve hunger pangs," Brendan began.

  "No matter what you feed us, mate, we'll have to come back for more than any suit could supply," Lars said as he and Killashandra entered the airlock. "All right now, Bren, let us out."

  They had both studied the log records of the Toronto, so they knew to turn left as soon as they exited the outer lock.

  "Humpf," Killa said, training her arm light on the fluorescent line the previous expedition had painted on the porous shell. "Nice of them, considering."

  "They expected to return," Lars remarked quietly.

  "I see the markings," Brendan said in an oblique reminder to narrate their progress more explicitly.

  "For posterity then," and Killashandra began the running commentary as they followed the guideline down steps that had been cut by their predecessors. There was even a line sprayed across a low threshold to warn them where to bend and hunching over, they started down the short passage into the larger chamber.

  "Hey, there's light ahead," Lars said, and turned off his beams. "A sort of blue radiance," he went on, gesturing for Killa to extinguish her lamps.

  The light source did not actually illuminate the passage, but the glow was sufficient to guide them to its source.

  As they entered the big cavern, they were both speechless for a moment. Luminescence cascaded in flinders of brilliance—like sparks, except that they didn't shoot out of their parent substance. The material that arced across the high ceiling seemed to flow, dark blue and dark green and then silver.

  "I am not there," Brendan reminded them politely.

  Lars turned on his helmet light, and immediately the radiance was quenched. Where the helmet beam touched, the material writhed with bands of black and dark blue and dark green. Almost, Killashandra thought, as if rushing blood to heal a wound. Did light on this lightless world constitute a threat or injury? She wondered if the sun's rays—unfiltered, with no atmosphere to reduce ultraviolet and infrared—penetrated the cavern to the jewel? For jewel it appeared to her, one graceful long sweep of jewel, a living necklace across the vault of the cavern. Or was it a tiara?

  "It's the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time," she murmured. "And I've seen some magnificent crystal." She paused, frowning. "I also don't know why or how, but I agree with Trag, Brendan. This jewel junk is alive. Who knows about sentience—but definitely a living organism!"

  "I agree with that," Lars said quietly, then began to examine the chamber while Killashandra concentrated on the gem cascade.

  "It's grown, too, Brendan, since the team was here four-five years ago. It's made a complete hoop across the ceiling from floor to floor," Killashandra went on.

  "And down into the next cavern, if there is one," Lars added, kneeling t
o shine the pencil-thin line of his forefinger light where the shimmering opalescent seemed to penetrate the floor of the cavern. The jewel itself darkened and seemed to contract, to retreat from the light source.

  "To the basement level for housewares and utensils," Killashandra recited in the tone of a robotic lift device, feeling a need to dispel the unusual sense of reverence that the chamber evoked in her. " No!" she cried in sudden fear as she saw Lars reach out to touch the narrow descending—tongue? facet? finger? probe? tentacle?—of the opalescent.

  Lars turned his helmeted head toward her, and his white teeth flashed a grin. "Let's not be craven about this. If the symbiont protects me, it protects me. After all, I'm suited . . ."

  "Use an extendable," Brendan said in a tone remarkably close to command. "The material of your suit is only guaranteed impervious to known hazards."

  "Good point, Lars," Killashandra added.

  He gave a shrug and snagged a tool from his belt. A light pass of the instrument across the coruscating extrusion gave no results. When he prodded it gently—and suddenly jerked back his arm.

  " Wow!"

  "Report?" Killa reminded him.

  First he looked at the tool. "Well, I'm glad you stopped me, Bren." He turned the implement toward Killa. She tongue-switched the magnification of her visor and saw that the end had melted, blurring its outline.

  "Hot the material is, but it gave on contact," Lars said.

  "Pliable?" Brendan asked.

  "Hmmm, flexible, maybe, or able to absorb intrusions," Killa suggested. "Or is it semiliquid, like mercury, or that odd stuff they found on Thetis Five?"

  "So far, except for your observation that the ah—" Brendan paused, "—semiliquid has spanned its cave in the four years since discovery, you have trod in the same path the geologists did. They also melted a few instruments trying to probe it."

  "I know, I know," Lars said, "but I like to draw my own conclusions." He passed his gloved hand over the material several times, being careful not to touch it. "Any heat readings on record?"

  "None, and I'm getting none either from the instrumentation you're carrying," the ship responded, sounding slightly disgusted.

  "Any movement?"

  "Negatory."

  "Can you give us a reading on whether the ground beneath us is solid or not, Brendan?" Killa asked.

  "You are currently standing on the intersection of three caves approximately two meters below you. Two of them are large, the other is small, less than half a meter in width and height. My readings corroborate the expedition's report that this satellite is riddled with cavities, probably right down to what used to be its molten core, in irregular layers and with equally irregular cavities."

  "Can you keep a scan on possible spots too thin to bear any weight?" Killashandra had a quick vision of herself falling through level after level of cinder.

  "Monitoring," was the ship's response.

  Killa realized she'd been holding her breath and expelled it. That allowed her stomach to mention it was empty, so while she made a confident circuit of the cavern, she sucked up the ration. In several places and with great care, she placed her gloved hand on the walls; her wrist gauge gave not so much as a wiggle. The ambient temperature of the cavern was the same as that on the satellite's surface. But there was something she was missing. Unable to think what that was, she shrugged and sucked on her tube.

  "Hey, this glop's not bad, Bren," she said.

  "Not eating already?"

  "On the hour, every hour," Lars answered. He hunkered down by the visible end of the material and poked, careful not to let his chisel touch the glowing substance as he scraped out a semicircle. He gave a grunt. "It's going down. But where? Any access to the next level, Bren?"

  "I think so," the ship answered after a bit. "Sort of a maze, but your suits have tracers on 'em, so I can keep track and direct you. Go out the way you came in . . ."

  Following his directions, they traveled one of the more tortuous routes they had ever followed, accustomed as they were to the vagaries of sly crystal in the Milekey Ranges on Ballybran.

  "I'm glad we don't have to stay too long in this place," Killa muttered, shining her lights around. The passageways seemed darker than ever after the subtle radiance of the junk-jewel cave. She preferred to have as much light around her as possible in dark burrows. The rock around them seemed to absorb their lights. "You eat it," she growled as she walked.

  "What? Me? Oh, you mean the rock?" Lars asked. "Yeah, it does sort of soak it up. Speaking of which . . ."

  "Not you, too!" Brendan exclaimed, almost sputtering. "It's scarcely two hours since you consumed an immense meal."

  "Hmmm, true!"

  "Humpf."

  "We can last about another hour, I think," Lars said, and grinned as Killa glanced back at him. Would Brendan catch the teasing note?

  "At this rate," replied Brendan trenchantly, "we'll be here for months! Turn obliquely right now, and watch that it is oblique—there's a hole!"

  "Whoops, so there is," Killa said, teetering on the edge as her hand and head lamps outlined the even deeper blackness. Then, as she swung right, the comforting arch of a passage was visible. "Nice save there, Bren. And what have we here but another cave!" Her tone was richly facetious. "And," she added, as she shone both lamps in a swing, "our little creepy-crawly has fingers in this pie, too."

  Lars stepped around her and walked up to the glittering nubbin just entering the roof of this cavity. He dropped his light to the floor, and they could both see a small pile of debris. Lars hunkered down and, with the end of his hammer, carefully prodded the mound, examining the end of the tool when he had finished.

  "Nope, not a melt. More like simple dust."

  "Take a sample," his partner suggested.

  "Take a sample of the rock, too," Brendan added.

  "Now, look a'that," Killa said, holding her light steady on the opposite wall, where the liquid opal had intruded as well. "How many layers of this cave complex did the geologists explore?"

  "At the original landing site, they penetrated several miles below the surface before they could proceed no further, but not here. However, records indicate that, in the cave above, the arch of the junk was incomplete. Nor do they mention that it penetrated below the first level in the landing site."

  "Fascinating!" Killa commented. "How many such manifestations were recorded, Bren?" Dammit, she had studied those reports only last night and she couldn't recall the details.

  "In nine of the twenty-three sites explored, they observed this opalescence. By then they hadn't found anything else particularly noteworthy, so they decided to proceed to the next system on their route when . . ."

  "Hmm, yes, indeed, when!"

  "You'd think it would grow up, out of the core," Lars mused, "instead of down from the surface."

  "If it is indigenous," Brendan suggested.

  Lars and Killa were silent a moment, considering that theory. "Well, being alien to this system would answer why it's topside instead of down below," Lars remarked.

  "Is there a way to prove alien origin?" Killa asked.

  "If you could find a sample that'll submit to examination, possibly," the ship replied wryly.

  "Suppose we explain that this won't hurt?" Killa was feeling waggish at this point. Faint from hunger, maybe. She sucked on the tube and got a mouthful of something rather more sweet than she liked. But it did depress the hunger pangs. "An alien substance? Hmm. Wherever could it have originated?"

  "There are more things on heaven and earth, Horatio . . ." Brendan intoned in a marvelously sepulchral note.

  "Nonsense, Bren, there's usually a scientific explanation for everything," Killa said sharply. The very idea of something like the opal just "dropping" in made her slightly nervous. They hadn't discovered anything about it yet. And it had killed a whole exploratory team.

  "I wonder," Lars said slowly, "if a quick freeze might not work to get us a sample."

  "Work how?" Killa as
ked, her mind taken off both stomach and apprehension.

  "I can't imagine how this stuff generates heat enough to melt an alloy as tough as the chisel, but maybe liquid nitrogen . . ."

  "Wouldn't hurt to try," Bren said. "Fight liquid with liquid?"

  "Have you got some?" Killa asked, again surprised.

  "My dear Killashandra Ree, this ship has everything!" Bren's voice was smug. "My inventory shows that there are two cylinders of liquid nitrogen in storage. I have both spray and stream nozzles that will fit the standard apertures."

  "Hmmm."

  "I'll have one ready when you return for your next meal," Brendan added at his driest.

  "And more luminescent paint, too," Lars added as the last drop dribbled out of his marking tube.

  They retraced their steps very carefully, feeling the cindery crunch of the surface under their booted feet. Again something teased at the back of Killa's mind but refused to be identified.

  The promised meal awaited them in the airlock, and they could barely wait until the iris had cycled shut and the oxygen level was adequate before they undid their helmets and attacked the food.

  "Oh, this is good, Bren," Killa said, gobbling down refried steakbean and reaching for the orange-and-green milsi stalks of which she was particularly fond. Lars, as usual, was munching on grilled protein.

  "Is indeed," Lars mumbled.

  "You'll notice the nitro tank?" Brendan asked pointedly.

  "Hmmm . . ." and Killashandra waved a forkful of beans at it. "Appreciate that."

  "And the marker tubes?"

  It was Lars's turn to reply. "Thanks."

  "You're welcome." Brendan sounded a trifle miffed.

  "Can't help this," Lars added, glancing up apologetically at the airlock's optic.

  Brendan's sigh was audible. "No, I suppose you can't, really. I've just never seen any bodies consume so much food in such a short time. And you're both bone-thin."