Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  All the resident staff of the Cube were quiet and depressed the next noon when Killashandra and Lars reached the dining room. While Killa filled her tray from the alcohol-drinks dispenser, Lars kept looking around, peering at the faces of those sitting in alcoves. Seeing his discreet search for Bollam recharged her vexation.

  "Lanzecki opted out, Lars," she said in an intense, low voice, jerking him to her side. "What're you drinking?"

  "Yarran!" His voice was flat.

  "Yarran? This is no time for beer! This is the time to get paralytic drunk!"

  He gave her a bitterly amused look. "I thought you wanted to be back in the Ranges tomorrow morning. With a hangover?"

  "With the most massive hangover I can acquire between now and then," she told him savagely, and downed the first of the many triple-measure glasses on her tray, pressing for a refill as she tossed the empty glass into the recycler.

  "You may just go out alone, then," he said. Taking the Yarran beer from the slot, he left her standing there.

  Surprised, she watched him maneuver among the tables, heading for the far alcove where the two Hangar officers were sitting. She hadn't thought Lars had a masochistic streak in him. Or maybe he just had to find out if Bollam had somehow managed to get Lanzecki into the sled and back to the Cube.

  The dork couldn't have managed it, or the nonsingers of the Guild wouldn't be so deep in drink. Now that she had looked around, she could see that most of them were as badly gone as she would like to be. She downed another triple and, moving carefully so as not to slosh a drop of liquid anesthesia, made her way toward Lars. The stench of ketones was almost overpowering. These people must have been drinking steadily since the news got out.

  "Oh, he'll live," Cargo was saying as Killashandra approached the table. "That's not saying how much good he'll be." She glanced up at Killashandra and, with a brief inclination of her head, indicated that the singer could join them. The flight officer clearly did not agree with that invitation. "Oh, leave it, Murr. You haven't been here long enough to know. You did as you should, Killa," she added and patted the cushion beside her. Her eyebrows did lift at the sight of so much liquor on the tray. She raised her mug of coffee. "Happy hangover!"

  Suddenly Killashandra lost any taste for the boozing she had planned. Her stomach roiled and growled. She sat down, hands limp in her lap, and stared across at Lars, wanting his reassurance and understanding even more than she had ever wanted to cut black crystal. He pointedly ignored her, and the tears began to stream down her face.

  "You did right, Killa. You did," Cargo said softly, and clasped her fingers on the singer's forearm, squeezing briefly with a gentling firmness before releasing. "Didn't she, Lars Dahl?" she added sternly.

  Lars looked at Cargo, unable not to avoid his partner's tear-streaked face. He closed his eyes, exhaling in defeat. "Yes, if you say so, she did."

  "Look here, Dahl." Cargo leaned across the table, her face fierce. "I do say so. If you want, you can ask Medical. They could see." And she waved her hand in the general direction of the infirmary wing where damaged singers were tended until such time as hearts in crippled bodies stopped and empty minds went dark. " I could see!" And her tone was fierce. "Murr here didn't know Lanzecki in his prime as I did, and Killa did! And Killa knew him better than most. Face it, Murr, Lars, she did the right thing. Don't know why that ass Bollam even qualified—except he was probably too craven, or too shitless scared to step back after Disclosure, when he heard all the risks he'd be taking on Ballybran. He had a lousy Transition, as if the symbiont working into his bloodstream also discovered it hadn't made a great choice of a home body, and we'd never though he'd end up a singer!" The scorn in her voice gave unexpected ease to Killashandra's anguish. "Certainly not as Lanzecki's partner!"

  "Lanzecki was shepherding him . . ." Lars said, trying to find some perverse justification.

  Cargo snorted bitterly. "When Lanzecki said he'd shepherd the geek, I knew I wouldn't ever see Lanzecki back in the Hangar, Lars. And I told you that, didn't I, Murr?"

  "I just don't understand why," Murr said. "Everyone's saying he was the best Guild Master we've ever had . . ."

  "There've only been four," Cargo replied.

  "Four?" Murr was staggered. "But the Guild's been going close to seven hundred years!"

  "Hmmm, so it has, and I've been Cargo for nearly two and a half hundred."

  That silenced Murr completely—he stared at the woman as if he expected her active body and attractive face to crumple into dust if he so much as blinked. Despite her grief, Killashandra was amused.

  "What did Medical know about Lanzecki?" Lars asked, his expression as bleak as ever. Somehow, though, Killa sensed that his antagonism toward her had eased.

  Cargo shrugged. "What happens to all of us eventually? The symbiont is weakened past restoration, and degeneration finally starts. All a fast downhill ride then." That was when she noticed Murr's expression and grinned. "Never fear, Murr, you're stuck with me a while yet. Me and my symbiont are in great shape."

  "It doesn't say in Rules and Regs," Lars began after watching Murr try to assume a normal attitude, "how a new Guild Master is elected."

  "No, it doesn't," Cargo agreed, frowning slightly. "But, like I say, the problem doesn't come up very often."

  Killashandra sent a fierce glare at Lars. The slight grin that tugged at one corner of his mouth did not reassure her.

  "It'll take time," Cargo added indifferently. "Politics is involved. What else is new? They have to choose someone acceptable to the majority of the long-term customers."

  "Who's 'they'?" Lars asked.

  "I dunno." Cargo shrugged again. "Maybe one of the Instructors knows." She looked around the big room. "None of them appears to be sober enough to ask. I gotta get back to work. Do I put your sled into a ready slot? That storm's cleared off."

  Killashandra didn't dare look at Lars.

  "Yes, we'll be out again tomorrow," he said, and she sagged against the cushions with relief. But her relief that was very short-lived as she remembered that Cargo estimated it would be a long time before the new Guild Master would be chosen.

  So she didn't get drunk to blunt her acute sense of loss at Lanzecki's death. She endured it as Cargo and Lars did, as Murr couldn't. But she drank glass for glass of Yarran beer with them. A singer could drink Yarran for days and barely blunt sensitivities. She heard that Bollam had survived with what wits he originally possessed intact. He had been badly crystal-cut when the rescue ship had found his crashed sled, but he had made it past the storm zone before losing control. What she hated Bollam for was that crystal had wiped all his memories of Lanzecki. She couldn't wait to get out in the Ranges and hope for the same respite. A few days cutting in the Ranges, and one could forget just about anything.

  Lars was up before her the next morning, their gear all packed, and silently they made their way to the Hangar. Cargo lifted her hand in acknowledgement; Flight Officer Murr lifted his only to give them the go-ahead. Some trainee gave them a formal release.

  As if the sled was on some kind of giant spring whose pull could not be resisted, they flew directly back to the black and yellow chevron of the green crystal.

  "We shouldn't have gone direct," Killashandra remarked to Lars as he passed over the marker.

  "Sky's clear," he said with a diffident shrug. It was. No other singer was aloft to see the direction they took, direct or oblique.

  When they landed in the little canyon, they both knew the vein had been damaged. They spent the rest of the day trying to cut down into clear color.

  "Fardles, it's gone, Lars, leave it," Killa said when decades upon decades of experience finally surfaced to remind her how pointless their efforts were. "Green cracks the worst of all when a vein's been exposed."

  He kicked at the shards underfoot to relieve his frustration and led the way back to the sled. They stayed there the night, but when crystal song woke desire in them, it was only crystal that spoke, not their hearts. />
  It took them a week to search the full circle of which that chevron was the center. They found a very light pink, but it wasn't worth the effort of turning on their cutters. They had withdrawn from each other as never before, and Killashandra cursed silently, craving to cut crystal and relieve the tension. Even Lars might forget—at least lose the edge of painful memory—if they could just cut.

  Perversely the weather stayed fair, but summer had Ballybran in its thrall and baked the Ranges. As they searched for crystal, they also looked for the deepest, most shadowy canyons in which to spend the night and get some relief from the unmitigated heat.

  "I could almost welcome a storm," Lars said. "Unless we can find some water, we're going to have to go back."

  "No! Not until we find crystal."

  He shrugged, but they did find water, a deep pool under an overhang where water had oozed out of the more porous rock and been collected in the shade. They filled the tank, then stripped and bathed, washing their clothing where a tiny stream trickled out of the pond. The relief was physical, not mental, but they were more in charity with each other than at any time since Bollam's voice had shattered their rapport.

  Late the next morning Lars, whose turn it was to pilot the sled, spotted an almost invisible black and yellow chevron.

  "What do you think? We cut here?" he asked.

  "I don't remember, don't care, I'd even cut pink, so long's we cut something!"

  "Eeny, meeny, pitsa teeny," and Lars aimed the sled sou'-sou'east to a narrow gorge with high walls on the north side. There was a V-shaped notch in the eastern lip. "That looks familiar."

  "It's a cut all right." She had both their cutters unracked before Lars landed the sled, and pausing only long enough to grab a water bottle, she half ran to the fracture, slipping on old shards to reach the site. "It's the black, Lars, it's the black!"

  Depression lifted from her, and she even remembered to be cautious as she climbed to the top of the shelf. Lars sang out a fine strong C, and she could feel the crystal's response even through the thick soles of her boots. She cut the first shaft, then struggled with Lars when he had to wrest it out of her hands, for it thralled her as black crystal usually did. She was weeping when she saw him nestle the black in the padded crate. He slapped her hard, three times across the face, and she leaned against him, grateful.

  "It's all right, Sunny. It's all right," he murmured, caressing her hair briefly. "Now, let's cut. For Lanzecki. He did like to see us bring in the blacks."

  "Yeah, but he's not going to make me link 'em! No way will he talk me into linking again!"

  She was figuring where to cut next, and how many they could get out of this fine black crystal, so she didn't see the peculiar way Lars looked at her.

  Clodine gave them top market price on their five crates of black. There was enough for two planetary systems—if any could afford the price of black-crystal comunits—and some nice single pieces that might just chord into current installations as auxiliaries. Clodine was full of praise for their work.

  "No one cuts the way you two do. I didn't realize singers could be so individual, but you are, you know," she said, slightly shy with embarrassment but sincere in her compliment.

  "Where'll we go, Lars?" Killashandra asked. "I think it's your choice."

  "I think you're right," he replied, laughing. He was himself again, she knew, but she didn't know why she thought he hadn't been.

  Back in their quarters, as usual she plunged directly into the tub while he updated his file.

  "That didn't take you long," she said. It seemed only a few moments before he came into the room. Usually an update took him a quarter of an hour.

  Still clothed, he was looking in a puzzled fashion at a printout. He held it so she could see the message.

  "Report to Conference? What does Lanzecki want you to do now?" She hauled at his hand. "You've got to bathe first. We reek!" She laughed because the smell of him could always arouse her no matter how rank he was.

  "Lanzecki?" He sighed, his eyes sad, and she wondered what was wrong. "I'd better go find out. This message is several days old."

  "He can wait. He has before."

  Lars peeled off the perspiration-stained and crystal-sliced overall. "I'll shower. I'll be back as soon as I know what this means." He crumpled the message in a wad and lobbed it at the recycler.

  "Oh, Lars! We've got to make plans . . ."

  "You start. Just find us a water world that we haven't been to, Sunny," he said, but she sensed his tone was forced.

  And so it would be, being required to report so immediately to Lanzecki after a month in the Ranges. Hot summer, at that. It would take several long baths to cleanse her skin of accumulated sweat and dust. Fardles, how she hated Ballybran in the summer. Even her hair had been baked off her head; she fingered the inch-short strands. No, the memory surfaced: they had cut each other's hair scalp-close at one point because they had been so hot and their hair so filthy.

  She sank to her chin; the radiant fluid was heavy against her skin, drawing out the vibrations that seemed to throb in every pore. She was tired. She didn't know how Lars was finding the energy to answer Lanzecki's summons. She did remember to pull the shoulder harness from its alcove and get her arms through it. That way, if she did fall asleep, she wouldn't slip beneath the fluid. A singer could drown that way. She had too much awareness of danger to fall into that trap the way . . . She paused, unable to remember who it was who had been in danger.

  She was just beginning to feel clean when Lars came swinging into the bathroom. He stood for a moment on the threshold, taking her in, and then began the grin she knew too well meant he was about to say something he knew she wouldn't like.

  "There's a terminal patient waiting escort at Shankill, Killa," he said, drawling the words out.

  She groaned. "And you volunteered? Why does Lanzecki always pick on us?"

  He pointed his index finger at her, lifting his eyebrows and grinning rather sheepishly, and she groaned again.

  "He picked me again?"

  An odd expression flashed across Lars's face, and his brows leveled again. " I picked you." He strode over to the bath, hooking a towel in one hand as he passed the rack. He held it up to her. "This is a real bad one. She wasn't diagnosed properly and the symbiont is the only chance she has."

  Killashandra heaved herself out of the bath, ignoring the entreaty in his eyes and the set of his lips. She stalked to the shower stall, the radiant fluid sleeting off her body with every step. She turned the water shower on full blast. From the curtain of water she glared at him, turning slowly to be sure the fluid rinsed off completely. Slamming the lever in the opposition direction, she deigned to take the towel from his hand. And sighed.

  "Does Lanzecki need singers so badly he'll recruit the moribund?" she asked flippantly, drying herself, deliberately making the actions sensual. Catching that same odd expression on her partner's face, she realized that dalliance was the last thing on his mind just then.

  "She hails from a planet named Fuerte. I thought you'd be the best representative the Guild could send."

  She caught the slight emphasis of the personal pronoun. A second flippant remark was on her lips when she sensed that Lars really wanted her to take this assignment.

  "Shuttle's waiting, Killa," he said gently. "She doesn't have much time."

  "Shards! Why me?" She flipped the towel away, examining her body. "I don't even have a recent scar to show off. I couldn't prove the positive rejuvenation of the symbiont. Much less," she added with a wry smile, "much less that I originated on Fuerte."

  "She doesn't have much time." Lars gave her his one-sided grin though his blue eyes remained sad. "And you're much better at Disclosure than anyone else I know."

  Grumbling to herself, nevertheless Killashandra went to the closet and dragged the first clean shipsuit she saw, thrusting her feet through the pant legs, shoving her arms down the sleeves, and closing the front as she used her toes to hook boots from th
e floor. She jammed her feet into them.

  "Where've they stashed her?"

  Lars's arm came around her shoulders and he nuzzled her ear, kissing fondly but with no hint of sensuality. "In Recruitment."

  "Recruitment?"

  He nodded. "You'll understand when you get there. Now go!"

  In fact, he walked her to the lift and gave her another kiss when she exited at the shuttle level. Killashandra wasn't happy about Lanzecki preempting Lars's assistance. She didn't really mind about her assignment—she had done it before.

  The Ballybran symbiont was the last chance for those whose illnesses could not be cured by modern techniques. In a galactic civilization, minor human mutations could result in major immune reactions to relatively innocuous viruses that refused to respond even with an immense pharmacopoeia and therapeutics cunningly developed from old-world reliables and alien innovations. Exposure to the Ballybran symbiont had proved remarkably effective in almost every single case—at least the ones that reached the planet before the organ damage have gone past the point of retrieval. The obvious deterrent was that the patient must take up whatever new life the symbiont provided—and not always that of crystal singer, since that required perfect pitch. But crystal singing was not the only career available on Ballybran. Support skills and professions were always welcomed. Killa wondered what skills this new candidate might have. Maybe replace that dork in Lanzecki's office?

  Lanzecki's personal shuttle was parked at the bay, and the pilot ceased lounging the moment she emerged from the lift, gesturing her urgently to hurry. She gave him a smile, since he appeared to know her.

  "What's the gen on this candidate?" she asked as she strapped herself in.

  He nodded briefly and completed the formalities with Traffic Control, but he didn't answer until they had cleared Ballybran's atmosphere.