Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  Although Killashandra worked on the official report with Lars, she let him take it to the Communications Center. When they had passed it in the ground vehicle on their way into the settlement, she experienced the frisson in her guts that told her she had cut the system's king crystal. She had returned as quickly as possible to the B&B. Now, in an atavistic burst, she scrubbed the food stains off the chairs while she waited for Lars to return. When he seemed to have been gone rather longer than the dispatch of a message should have taken, she began to feel ill used, then irritated and finally worried.

  "This isn't an over-regulated planet, is it? Crystal singers aren't forbidden?" she asked Brendan.

  "Not at all. It's a very loosely settled place, though there's a fair competition between recreational facilities to attract visitors. Penwyn handles what administration there is and he arbitrates any disputes, as well, but it's an orderly world."

  At last Lars came back with promotional holos crammed into every pocket of his shipsuit. He was plainly delighted as he dumped them on to the worktop by the viewer and gestured dramatically at Killashandra.

  "Take your pick! Reports filed—state of the art comtower, I'll tell you that, with your friend, Penwyn, handling the transmission, Bren. Guess you won't mind how long we're away, will you?"

  "Hmmm, no, of course I won't," Brendan answered vaguely. He was busy chatting up Penwyn.

  During the day that it took the two crystal singers to decide where to go first—eventually they settled on cross-country skiing to get their muscles limbered up for downhill runs—they didn't hear much from Brendan.

  "Must be making up for the last fifty years," Lars said.

  "Must you measure time!" she replied in a burst of irritation. What did time have to do with anything? It was today that mattered, and how well they spent it, how much they enjoyed it, or, if they were working in the Ranges, how much they could cut in a day!

  Lars regarded her in surprise and then apologized in such a perfunctory manner that he aggravated her further. The lingering stress put a bit of a damper on their journey to the resort Killashandra had chosen. But once at the 'port that serviced the area—a long narrow valley amidst the most magnificent mountain scenery—her mood lifted.

  The 'port was above the snowline in the mountainous rim of Sherpa's main continent, Nepal. They were collected at the door by the soberly welcoming rep of the snotel they had booked into.

  "I am Mashid," he told them, making a low, respectful bow. Dark almond-shaped eyes did not so much as blink as he continued his greeting. "I have been appointed to see that your sojourn with us is all that you desired."

  Killashandra and Lars exchanged quick looks.

  "We're remarkably easy to please," Killa said, "so long as you don't show me any large bodies of water." She dug Lars in the ribs.

  "All water at this altitude is frozen," Mashid replied stolidly.

  "What do we drink then?" Lars asked with a bare twitch of his lips. "Melted snow?"

  "Drinking water"—and Mashid's attitude toward drinking that was contemptuous—"is of course supplied as needed from protected reservoirs."

  "I was joking," Lars said.

  "As you wish." Mashid tendered another bow. Sweat had appeared on his forehead, for he was bundled in furs and thick fur-topped boots.

  "Lead on," Lars suggested, gesturing to the door. He and Killashandra had bought outerwear suitable to the mountain climate but, though it had been pricey in the spaceport shop, neither jacket was as lush as Mashid's apparel. They learned later that he had caught, tanned, and made his garments as most of the mountain people did.

  Turning with yet another bow, Mashid led them outside to an animal-drawn sleigh, brightly painted in orange and black stripes with the name of their snotel blazoned in huge letters on its sides. A pair of antlered, rough-coated beasts were harnessed to it, stamping their cloven hooves in the snow. They were nearly as long as the sleigh.

  Lars and Killashandra were gestured into the passenger seat, and an immense fur robe was deftly tucked about them. Mashid swung expertly up on to the driver's seat and flicked a whip at the rumps of the beasts. The speed of their departure nearly gave Lars and Killashandra whiplash.

  The pace was exhilarating; so was the crisp air, and the unusual method of transportation. Killa laughed aloud in sheer delight. She couldn't remember ever seeing so much snow before. She almost asked Lars if they had and then, as abruptly, didn't want to know: she wanted less to know if she had seen snow than if Lars could remember if they had. Then he turned a happy smile to her and it didn't matter. She was here, with Lars, and they had months before they had to even think of crystal and Ballybran. She was totally distracted by the cold wind nipping at her ears and clamped gloved hands to protect them.

  In their four months at the snotel, they attempted every single snow sport available, including races on single skis and on sno-bikes down almost vertical slopes. They missed being buried in an avalanche by the length of a ski; they skate-danced, snow-surfed and -planed, and went spelunking through ice and rock caverns of incredible beauty. They absorbed Mashid's instructions and improved on them, until eventually they surprised approval—even compliments—from the sturdy Nepalese, who began to view their near-indestructibility with awe. They doubted he had ever met crystal singers before or knew that their minor bruises, lacerations, and contusions healed overnight, leaving them fully able to cope with the new day's ordeals. They almost regretted leaving him behind in the mountains.

  But they had done all they could of the snow sports, and so they moved from the mountains to the vast bowl of the internal plains of Nepal. There they did take to the water and acquired a new guide without the imperturbability of Mashid. With him, they canoed through tortuous canyons on flumes of water, shooting dire-toothed rapids.

  Once in a while they checked in with Brendan, who informed them that he was quite content and they needn't hurry. So they hunted for two months in the lake districts with a party of mixed planetarials, and rode and camped along the coastline for a month with another, during which time Lars so pointedly said nothing about sailing that Killashandra was sure she would burst with not hearing the words he didn't speak.

  "We've done everything else," Killashandra said the night before they would turn inland, back to the vicinity of the spaceport. "We really can't leave Sherpa without sailing, can we?"

  "Can we not?" Lars retorted placidly.

  "If you wanted to, we could."

  "Wrong," he said, and with his index finger pressed her nose in. "If you wanted to, we could."

  Perversely, she ducked away from him and rolled off the bed, unaccountably annoyed with his self-sacrifice.

  "It was my turn to pick," she said in a savage tone.

  "Hey, honey-love . . ." Lars sprang from the bed to catch her in his arms, his face anxious. "Don't be like this. It was your turn to pick the place and activities, and I've enjoyed everything we've done together."

  She struggled in his arms, furious with his acquiescence, even with his concern.

  "Hey, hey . . ." He tried to gentle her, pulling him against his bare body. "Need a radiant bath?" He stroked her to judge crystal resonance in her body.

  "I don't need one. I don't need crystal that badly yet. Ahhhhh!" And her irascibility disappeared as she arched in his arms. "Crystal! We didn't try crystal."

  " Try crystal? Where? What are you talking about, Killa?"

  "We never gave the Junk any crystal."

  "It would have absorbed—Oh, I see what you mean!" He blinked in sudden comprehension. "D'you really think Ballybran crystal wouldn't be absorbed by the Junk?" he asked, catching a bit of her excitement despite his skepticism. "What good would that do?"

  "Communication. A lot easier than rapping out rhythm. There'd be a useful link with it, if nothing else." Killashandra was as tense with eagerness as she had been with irritation.

  "We've done our job," Lars argued in protest. "We've acquitted the assignment . . ."

&n
bsp; "But we didn't find out anything."

  "We found out the Junk is not a Heptite concern."

  "But we didn't try crystal!" she repeated, struggling to release his grip.

  "Well, if it means that much to you, let's see what Brendan says about taking us back there—with crystal. There, there, love-heart." Lars soothed her with hand and voice until she relaxed against him again. "Only where will we get some Ballybran crystal here?"

  "They've black crystal . . ."

  "Huh? You think they'll loan black for this escapade?"

  Killa glared at him "It's not an escapade. It's a point of investigation we neglected to make."

  "Well, if they use black crystal, they use others," Lars said, releasing her and marching to the comconsole. "And if they use others, they also abuse them and there'll be sour crystal somewhere on this planet. We can offer to retune, and take the slivers as part of our fee."

  "We can't give the Junk sour crystal."

  "I don't think anything would give it indigestion," Lars remarked, pausing as he punched in Brendan's on-planet code. "Any scraps large enough can be tuned to some sort of pitch. You know, it might be fun to tune crystal when we don't have to."

  Brendan was willing enough to return to Opal, though Killashandra could hear the reservations in his tone.

  "I can't hang about there too long," he said, "and get you back to Ballybran in time to collect Boira. She's doing splendidly in rehab and retraining." Pride in his partner's recuperation colored his pleasant voice.

  "That's very good news indeed, Bren," Killa said, meaning it. "We just want to see what effect our crystal might have on the Junk."

  "It'll probably gulp it down like it did everything else and lick its chops at the taste."

  "Only sound has any effect on Ballybran crystal," Killashandra said with considerable pride. "And there's no sound on an airless planet."

  "Possibly," Brendan said. "And we didn't try diamond either."

  "Ballybran crystal's tougher than any diamond ever compressed from carbon!"

  "My, we are loyal!" Lars said facetiously.

  Killashandra gave a sniff. "Well, there isn't any substance like Ballybran crystal anywhere else in the universe."

  "Except"—and Lars's eyes glinted with teasing—"possibly the Junk!"

  Crystal resonance was beginning to get to Killashandra as Brendan took them back to the Opal system in one Singularity Jump. It had started when she and Lars retuned to a minor fifth the sour dominant midblue crystals that Penwyn had procured for them. As Lars had thought, there were quite a few soured crystals on the planet. Though Penwyn didn't ask them too, they tuned them all—the work of three days for such experienced singers—and he canceled Brendan's landing fees. But the sessions had an effect on Killashandra, and she spent a full day in the radiant-fluid tub.

  "I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted to Lars and Brendan when they were too solicitous of her. "Being near black always does it."

  Lars desisted then and must have told Brendan to leave off inquiring, for neither of them said another word until the BB-1066 landed near the Big Hungary Junk—as Killa dubbed it—with the sweet-tuned slivers of crystal that they had salvaged.

  "Old home week," she said with unforced gaiety as they suited up.

  "Do we know what we're doing, Killa?" Lars asked as he settled his helmet over his head.

  "No."

  "D'you know why you're doing it?"

  "No."

  "Maybe the Junk is sentient."

  "You mean, some sort of psionic emanations?" Killashandra was not only skeptical but incredulous.

  "Why else would you have such a harebrained notion to feed Ballybran crystal to an opalescent rib?" he demanded.

  "I got the notion on Sherpa, not in the cave. I could have understood some sort of a connection if I'd thought of it then."

  "You probably did," Lars replied, "you just forgot it. And don't snap at me over your lapsus memoriae! Let's get this experiment on the pad."

  Even as he spoke he touched the lock release and it cycled open. Oxygen left the airlock with a whoosh. They stepped out on to Opal's cindery hide and followed the bright paint markings to Hungry Junk's precinct.

  "Hey, improvement," Lars said as soon as they had descended to the level of the cavern. The blue radiance, edging toward white, made their suit lights unnecessary. "Wow!"

  "Wow what?" Brendan asked when the silence went on for fifty seconds.

  "You're sure your instrumentation doesn't read anything?" Lars asked.

  "Not a thing. What occasioned your unusual exhortation?" Brendan asked flippantly.

  "We fed it too much," Killashandra replied softly.

  "Naw," Lars said, "but we fed it good."

  "Tell me, do!" was Brendan's slightly sarcastic remark.

  "Sorry, Bren," Killashandra replied, "but it's a bloody shame you can't see. Junk's covered the entire cave, and there are long fingers that we'll probably find have descended to the next level. It's more beautiful than ever, all colors now, reds and oranges and yellows, as well as the blues, dark greens and purples that it originally had. They seem to flow in and out of patterns . . ."

  "Like fractals," Lars added, sounding oddly languid. "I could watch—Hey, what'd you do that for?" She'd given him such a push he'd nearly lost his balance.

  "You were becoming thralled. Junk's hypnotic." Killa said, her voice sharp. "Maybe even addictive."

  " Should we give it crystal then?" Lars asked, his tone crisp and alert again.

  "That's what we came to do. So let's do it!"

  "All the crystals to old Hungry Junk?"

  "No, just one," Killashandra said. "Let's see what happens."

  She pointed to a large swag of the Junk that was flowing toward the floor. Lars took the largest crystal, the B-flat, and, holding it in the calipers, inserted the blue. Junk obligingly flowed over it.

  The two crystal singers held their breaths as they watched.

  " Yup!" Killashandra let out a triumphant crow. "It can't eat crystal."

  "It can't?" Brendan asked. "What's it doing?"

  "Holding it in its cheek," Lars said flippantly, grinning at Killashandra, "having a good taste." The Junk was rippling back and forth across the crystal insertion, going through all the colors of its visible spectrum without altering the outline of cube. Then it seemed to push the cube upward, toward the crown in the center of the ceiling. Though apparently drawn deep into the opalescence, the crystal patently retained its integrity.

  "Now what?" Brendan asked when the singers had nothing further to report.

  "Look!" In astonishment Killashandra pointed to the half-open sack of crystals at her feet. They pulsed from midblue to dark and then paled. "Damn!" She dropped to her knees beside them. "Are they singing? Can't hear a bloody thing."

  Tentatively Lars placed the tip of his gloved finger on the faceted surface of the nearest one.

  "Vibration all right." He grinned in triumph. "Communications established?"

  "Could be, but pulsations and color alterations are no more intelligible than drum codes—until a code or even a language can be established. And semanticists we are not," Killashandra said, a degree of regret in her voice.

  "Then let us by all means leave it to the experts," Brendan said. "Around such an unknown quantity, I find that I get almost as nervous for you as I do for Boira."

  "Why, thanks, Bren," Killashandra said, touched by the ship's concern. "But I don't think we're in any danger."

  "You are edible," he replied succinctly.

  Killashandra laughed and Lars grinned at her.

  "I wonder if any of the other Junk has expanded."

  "We only fed this one," she replied. "Let's go see."

  Lars picked up the remaining crystal, which continued to glow until they had entered the airlock and Brendan had lifted from the immediate vicinity of Big Hungry. They checked the other locations and found that no other formation had increased as significantly as Hungry Junk, although al
l had begun to flow downward again.

  "Got anything on board to feed the starving?" Lars asked.

  "In point of fact, I do," Brendan said. "Penwyn had non-recyclable wastes he did not care to dispose of on-planet . . ."

  "Dirty stuff?"

  "Obliging I am; stupid I'm not! No, most of it's clean litter from the spacefield. I thought we might use the refuse to better effect."

  "Indeed we can." Killa said, pleased. "I think the Junk's starved too long."

  Lars was dubious. "We might be making more problems . . ."

  "We might," she said with a shrug, "but I can't not."

  "I've kept a file on the metallic and organic content of what we're feeding it," Brendan said.

  "Then we do a comparison, a standard scientific practice," Lars replied, dismissing his reservations. "We feed four metallic and four organic."

  It was tiring work, even in .7 gravity, distributing and feeding eight very hungry opalescents. As they trudged back to the 1066, both singers felt a curious satisfaction in the heightened glow and vigorous flow as Junk ingested their meals.

  When they had finished, the two singers returned briefly to the Big Hungry to check on the crystal.

  "Not even Junk can eat Ballybran crystal," Killashandra said proudly.

  "The cubes you left in the lock, however," Brendan remarked, "have remained dormant."

  "Too bad we didn't have any dirty waste to give the Junk," Lars said, "to see if it could digest half-lifes."

  Killashandra regarded him warily. "You do want to live dangerously, don't you?"

  "Well, I don't think we've done any lasting harm. How long can one good meal last Junk? I think we leave this to the experts. Singers we are; scientists we're not."

  "We're a lot smarter than that exploratory team who found Junk," Killa said.

  "Are we?"

  "Who can say at this juncture?" Brendan said, deftly diverting an argument with his outrageous pun. Lars and Killa groaned in unison as he went on. "You've done more than you were required to. And, while I hate to press you . . ." he added tentatively.