Crystal Line

by Anne McCaffrey

  While she still resisted his prohibition, she had to admit that she would be extremely vulnerable to black thrall. She also had to admit that she had been in a terrible state when they had gone out: as near as made no never mind to being a crystallized cripple. They might have been searching for black crystal, but she was bloody lucky they hadn't found any. Green thrall had been deep enough. She owed him a lot for risking his own neck taking her out at all in that state.

  "So, what do you need done, Guild Master?" she asked flippantly.

  He smiled, with genuine relief. "Thanks, Sunny, I really appreciate it."

  "So?"

  "Eat first," he said. "I can't think when my stomach's clinging to my backbone."

  She was hungrier than she had thought and quite willing to concentrate on eating. Odd how a full belly could reduce resistance to unpalatable business.

  When they had cleared the last morsel from the platters, Lars leaned back, patting his stomach and smiling.

  "That's better. Now, if you could finish rounding up the figures and prices on the accounts I have on the screen, then I can go salve wounded feelings."

  "Whose?"

  "Clarend and Ritwili have legitimate grievances which must be addressed, and I've a delegation to meet at Shankill that I can no longer postpone."

  "I might be better with the delegation than with the files," she suggested warily.

  "It's the sort of thing you've done for Lanzecki before. D'you remember the Apharian contingent? Well, I've got the Blackwell Triad looking for favors now. Similar circumstances, similar solution, but I need the account figures on hand."

  "Bor-ring," she said, rolling her eyes.

  "A lot of what I have to do is boring, and yet . . ." Lars regarded her, his wide mouth curling in a grin, "I rather like finding out how this Guild hangs together against all comers."

  Killashandra snorted. "We've a unique product that no one else can produce, no matter how hard they try. We're in control."

  "I like that 'we', Sunny." He reached across the table to fondle her hand. "I'll go heal fractured feelings; you find me figures."

  "Just this once, because I owe you," she warned him, pulling her hand away and shaking her finger at him. "Don't think you can rope me into this full time. I'm a singer, not a key tapper! Find yourself a recruit with business training."

  "I'm trying to," he said with a sly grin.

  Once she became absorbed in the analysis, Killashandra found it more interesting than she had expected. Certainly the scope of the Guild's authority—and its unassailable position as the only source of communication crystal systems—was wider than she had imagined. Her job—the cutting—was but the beginning of a multitude of complex processes with end uses in constant demand throughout the inhabited galaxy. Deprive a world of Ballybran crystal, and its economy would collapse, so vital were the shafts, and even the splinters, to technology on all levels. The pure research buffos in the labs here kept finding new applications of crystal—even ground shards had uses as abrasives. The more brilliant of the smaller splinters could be made into resonating jewelry, much in vogue again. She wondered how the galaxy had let one Guild gain so much power. What had Lars been on about? Reorganizing? Modernizing? What? The Guild bought state-of-the-art technology in other fields.

  Unable to resist the temptation of having unrestricted access to the Guild's master files, Killashandra ran some that she might never again have a chance to discover. Lars had said something about aggregate cutting figures. She wanted to know just how much she, Killashandra Ree, had contributed to the success of the Guild. Once in the ultraconfidential files, those entries were easy enough to find. But the dating of their first duet journey was a shock. They couldn't have been cutting that long. They couldn't . . .

  She canceled the file and sat looking at the screen, patiently blinking a readiness to oblige her. She couldn't . . .

  "Sunny?" Lars's voice on the comunit broke through the fugue such knowledge caused. "Sunny, got those figures for me? Sunny? Sunny, what's wrong?"

  His voice, concerned and increasingly anxious, roused her.

  "I got 'em . . . " She managed to get the words out.

  "Sunny, what's the matter?"

  "Am I old, Lars?"

  There wasn't much of a pause and, later on, she was never sure if there had been any before he laughed. "Old? A singer never gets old, Sunny." His voice rippled with a laughter that sounded genuine to her critical ear. She couldn't even imagine that his amusement had been forced. "That's why we become singers. To never get old. Give me those figures, will you, and then I can get back from Shankill and show you just how ageless we both are! Don't get sidetracked by trivia like that, Killa. Now, what are those figures? Patch them through, will you?"

  Like an AI, she performed the necessary function and then leaned back in the Guild Master's comfortable but too big chair and tried to remember how she could possibly have cut so many tons of crystal over so many decades.

  Lars found her there when he returned long after night had fallen over Ballybran. Nor could he, using all his skills as lover or persuader, bring her out her fugue. He did the only thing possible: took her out into the Ranges again.

  She broke out herself when she realized that they were deep in the Milekey Range. On that trip they found the elusive black crystal, a full octave in E that was likely to sing messages around the biggest of the systems vying for comcrystals. But cutting the blacks enervated Killa to the point that she did not argue with Lars when he reluctantly but firmly turned the sled back to the Guild. For the first time it wasn't a storm that drove them in.

  Dimly, Killa realized that he carried her in his arms all the way down to the Infirmary, refusing any assistance or the grav-gurney. He undressed her himself while Donalla attached the monitors and Presnol fussed over which medication would produce the best results in the optimum time.

  "Shard the optimum!" Lars raved. "Juice up her symbiont! Heal her!"

  He saw her harnessed into the radiant-fluid bath before he stormed off. She let herself drift then and didn't even wonder how much credit that octave of blacks had earned them.

  Chapter 9

  "Did you get enough blacks in?" Killa asked Lars the first time she saw him after she began to pull out of the traumatic exhaustion.

  "Enough to reduce the clamor a few decibels, Sunny." He bent to kiss her cheek and then pinched it, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. "The ones we cut together were the best."

  "Naturally," she said with a flash of her usual arrogance.

  "Seen the figures on that octave?" he asked.

  "One of my first conscious acts." She leaned into the fingers that stroked her cheek. "I've a bird to pluck with you. You gave me part of those you brought in when you went back out by yourself, and that's not in Rules and Regs. You cut by yourself," she said, scowling at him but well pleased at his generosity.

  "Ah, but it's your site. All things being equal, you'd've continued cutting with me until the weather turned."

  "So," she said, moving her head slightly back from his caresses and eyed him speculatively, "what is such charity going to cost me?"

  Lars gave a hearty laugh, throwing his head back and tipping the chair away from the bed, balancing it deftly on the back legs. "I wasn't so much charitable as conscious of my administrative edict that those whose claims were cut without their participation would be awarded a settlement."

  "I'm an existing and active singer," she said, outraged. " I'm not—not yet, at any rate . . ." And she waved her hand in agitated denial toward the section of the Infirmary, which cared for the brain-damaged singers.

  "No, of course, you're not. The fact remains that I was compelled by press of orders to obtain black crystal from any viable site," he said, solemn for a moment. "And you did cut there earlier with me, so it was only just, meet, and fair that you got your share—especially at the current market price of blacks." He rolled his eyes. "Best ever."

  "Yes, it was, wasn't it!" Killa grinn
ed back at him. Blacks always generated top earnings. Their octave had earned her more than she had made in—her mind stumbled over the time factor. Quickly she turned away from such speculations. "Has that octave been processed yet?" She was still annoyed with Donalla and Presnol for not allowing her to access that information. They had kept her restricted to a simple voice-only comunit.

  "Oooh, as fast as it could be shaped and bracketed. The Blackwell Triad drooled when I made it available to them. Eight was what they needed, and eight matched was a plus. Which they paid for."

  "Too right!"

  "Terasolli installed them." Lars's grin turned sour. "Then lost himself so well in Maxim's Planet I haven't been able to locate a trace of him. Even with what the pricey establishments on Maxim's charge, he's got enough to lose himself for months."

  "I remember going to Maxim's once with you," Killa said, though she could recall no details of the legendary exotic pleasances that the leisure planet offered. Though some singers risked mind and body to cut enough for repeated visits to Maxim's, she couldn't recall any desire to do so.

  "Once. No seas, not even lakes, so no sailing." He cocked her a malicious grin. "Which reminds me. Care to get out of here for a few days R and R? You can crew for me."

  "To get out of here I'd even crew!"

  Counterfeiting irritation at her jibe, he ruffled her hair into snarls and left, whistling a chanty.

  Three days later, when she made her way down to the pier, she was surprised to find Donalla, Presnol, and Clodine already there, carisaks at their feet. She very much resented Lars's extending his invitation to anyone else, much less these three. She had wanted—expected—only his company on board the Angel. The ship was more than enough rival for his attention. Then she experienced a second, more disjointing shock when she got a good look at the ship moored to the long pier: it was not the Angel she thought she remembered clearly, but a craft some ten or fifteen meters longer. A sloop, but a much bigger one. That somewhat explained the extra hands but did not disperse her disgruntlement.

  Lars arrived before she got past a stiff greeting to the others. He jogged down the pier, grinning broadly at the success of his surprise.

  "She's great, isn't she?" he said, his face boyish and more like the Lars she had known than the Guild Master he had become. "This'll be her maiden voyage. You're the shake-down crew."

  Not even Killashandra had the effrontery to blight his pleasure as he shepherded them on board, pointing out the technological improvements and amenities, the spaciousness, the luxury of the several cabins and wardroom, still smelling of varnish, paint and that indefinable odor of "unused". There was even space for a body-sleeve-sized radiant bath. Killa lost the edge of her vexation when Lars guided her to the captain's cabin, genially waving the other three to pick out their own bunks. There would be much more privacy on Angel II – unless, of course, Lars insisted on standing a different watch. Maybe they would have to, for she had no idea of how much seamanship the two medics and the Sorter had.

  "Like it, Sunny?" Lars said, tossing his duffel to the wide bunk and gesturing around the beautifully appointed cabin. "The rewards of cutting black!"

  "Must have cost you every bit you made," she murmured, looking about her appreciatively. "State-of-the-art?"

  "She was when she left the boatyard on Optheria." Lars slipped his arms about her waist, enfolding her to him and burying his face in her short crisp curls. "Probably still is, though I waited to sail her until I could have my Sunny aboard. No fun for me to sail without you, you know." He kissed her, then let her go to swing his arms about expansively. "She's a beaut, isn't she? Saw her sister ships on Flag Three and I've lusted after one like her ever since."

  "Do the others know how to sail?" she asked, curious and still somewhat resentful.

  "They sailed on the old ship a couple of times," he admitted casually. "They don't get seasick, if that's your worry, and, while this baby should run herself, they know their way about a deck."

  "Who cooks?" Killa said, half teasing.

  "Whoever's off-duty," he replied gaily, and then hugged her to him. "It's good to have you back on board, lovey. Real good. Now—" and his manner turned brisk—"let's get this cruise underway."

  It turned out to be a very good cruise, especially when Killashandra realized that she was a much more capable sailor than any of the others. And, as usual, she responded automatically, and correctly, to any of Lars's orders.

  The important things to remember she remembered, she told herself. The rest was chaff, which time would have winnowed out of active memory anyway.

  And, as they anchored every evening in a cove and the ship could be rigged to rouse the crew if its monitors received any critical readings, Lars and she spent their nights together in the captain's double bunk.

  They fished and ate the panfried catch, sweet and delicate in flavor and flesh. They sailed, or rather Lars did—he would let no one take the helm for very long, even Killa. By the afternoon of the third day out, they encountered some stormy weather. She reveled in it, for it brought back to mind flashes of other storms she had experienced on ships with Lars. It was four days before the pressures of the Guild had to be considered. Lars tried to settle one set of problems that were patched through to him, but since he had no assistant to handle matters during an absence, they regretfully had to turn back.

  "I thought you were going to find yourself an aide," Killa said, unhappy at having the halcyon trip truncated.

  "I've been trying to find the right personality for the past seven years, Sunny. Isn't easy to find anyone suitable. Oh, there've been a couple of recruits who had some potential, passable as temporaries, but none who had the breadth of experience to be effective executives. I need someone who knows and understands Guild tenets, has or could cut crystal, has managerial skills without being a power freak. Most especially someone I can trust . . ."

  "Not to usurp your prerogatives?" Killa asked facetiously.

  "That, too," he agreed, grinning at her. "It's not an easy position to fill. I've learned to do as much as I can myself without delegating it to others because, bluntly, singers forget too much."

  Killa heard that on several levels and winced. His arm came about her, lovingly tucking her against him, and she felt his kiss on the nape of her neck.

  "Worse, they sublimate—Donalla's word—crystal singing into the most important aspect of their lives which, in many senses, it has to be. The disadvantage to that is the balance: they end up with such narrow parameters in which they can function that they're bloody useless for any broader view. They're either singing or they flee from singing until they can no longer ignore the need for crystal. That sort of myopia compromises a lot of otherwise good people. Life holds more—hey, Sunny, what's the matter with you?" Killa had stiffened in his arms, and tried to push him away. "Hey, no need to take offense!" He laughed at her and pulled her back into his arms, caressing her until she began to relax. "Silly chunk!"

  She made herself soften in his arms because they were nearly back at the Guild harbor, but whether or not he denied it, she felt that his comments had not been as casual as he pretended. And yet . . . nothing in the past few days suggested to her that there had been any other, subtle alteration to their long relationship. Donalla was patently interested in Presnol, and Clodine apparently had a like-for-like preference.

  Then Lars issued the necessary orders to ready the ship for docking, and there was no time for any further conversation. On the one hand, Killa resented that Lars had left her so unsettled with his remarks unclarified, but, on the other, she wanted time to mull over what he had said. If the suit fits, wear it, she thought.

  With utter honesty, she recognized that she was guilty of compressing her personal parameters into just such a narrow track. Had Lars seen that? Was he hoping that his remarks would jolt her out of that myopia? Only how? Something teased at the edge of her mind. Something important. She couldn't catch so much as a hint.

  She sighed and
finished cleaning up the galley and removing the last of the perishable foods. Well, maybe she wasn't as myopic as some. She sailed, didn't she? And she could remember seeing more water worlds than any galaxy had the right to offer.

  Sailing had given Lars Dahl some respite from the pressures of his responsibility, but the main one had doubled on him—more black crystal was ordered.

  "I left instructions that no further orders were to be taken," Lars said, angrily furrowing his brows as he glared at the comscreen. It had been buzzing for his attention the moment he opened the hatch on his private ground vehicle.

  "Guild Master, we never refuse orders for black," he was told.

  "We can't fill the orders we've got." Lars leaned out of the open door. "Donalla, you're going to have to lean on Borella and Rimbol."

  The names were vaguely familiar to Killashandra.

  "I'll do what I can, Lars," Donalla called back to him, but she shrugged as if she was none too sanguine about success.

  "Rimbol? I knew him—I think," Killashandra said as a hazy image of an ingenuous smile on a boyish face flickered in recall. "And Borella . . ." The woman's face was not clear; memory centered on a tall strong body and a badly lacerated leg. "I haven't seen them in a long time," she added.

  "You're not likely to, Sunny," Lars said kindly. "They both turned off storm warnings once too often."

  "Oh!" She paused, considering that information. "Then how can Donalla lean on them?"

  Lars had stowed their two duffels; he strapped himself into his seat, motioning for Killa to do the same, as he prepared to drive back to the cube.

  "Regression," he replied succinctly.

  That was the word.

  "What's that?"

  "It's an old technique of accessing segments of memories lost on purpose or from brain injury. We don't use but two-fifths of the brains we've got. As Donalla explained, some functions can be switched to unused portions of the mind, and often memories get shunted out of active recall. Off and on, there have been fads of regression, usually to former lives." He chuckled before continuing, an indication of his opinion of such an exercise. "We're using it to tap memory strings. Donalla's research on memory loss suggests that we don't actually lose anything we've seen, heard, and felt. The unpleasant we tend to bury as deep as possible, depending on its effect on our psyches. Oddly enough, good memories get dropped just as thoroughly. Through a careful use of hypnosis, Donalla has been able to reclaim lost knowledge."